I know the Mississippi State Deer Lab and its research has been referenced on here before. I watched their series of short videos this afternoon on YouTube about deer movement. If you haven't seen them or aren't familiar with the MSU Deer Lab they are worth a look.
MSU Deer Lab's deer movement study
- Thread starter tahtah
- Start date
Deer movement can be pretty fascinating. I think this has been posted before but this buck movement study is really cool and has a freaky plot twist.
www.deer.psu.edu
Penn State Deer-Forest Study
www.deer.psu.edu
I saw the Penn State study when it was posted here before and it's very interesting. For the MSU study, they tagged 55 bucks. If I understand correctly, it was actually more because as bucks where killed, one way or another, they put those collars on additional bucks. In one of the videos they talked about drawing conclusions when looking at one individual versus the aggregate for the entire study population. I think it'd be very interesting to see a similar study done by PSU, an aggregate of several bucks, in their region. I wonder if the overall study be the same as MSU's or would they see an aggregate result similar to that one buck?
It would be interesting for sure. Having hunted both states, I believe the pressure in MS would be less, but spread out over a much longer period. In PA, there will be a million hunters in the woods on the opening day of rifle season with most guys hunting just a day or two. It would be interesting to see how the deer react differently to the circumstances.
BSK
Well-Known Member
That would be really interesting. I did see a study from PA looking at doe survival. They had quite a few does collared in a heavily hunted public area. Yet very few of the collared does got killed. They survived by immediately finding and shifting to the areas with the least human intrusion.
It's been 25 years since I hunted PA but the crazy intense pressure of the first day of rifle season has to drive the deer to hiding. Back then, deer season was 2 weeks of buck hunting only followed by 3 days of does season. I would venture to say that 75% of the bucks killed during the 2 week buck season were killed on the opening day, which was always the Monday after Thanksgiving. Mainly because most guys just had Monday off to hunt and then went back to work/school.
I watched a series of short, 2-4 minute, YouTube videos about their study. I think there were a total of 8. Each video discussed a particular aspect of the study. But after watching that series, I found a podcast on YouTube where they discussed the study. The podcast was just short of an hour. They focused on discussing the 3 months of gun season. They tracked hunters and deer on a 50,000 acre range of multiple private lands. They had data on when and where the hunters hunted and from the GPS collars had data on the deer movements.
As you (BSK) mentioned about the study of collared does. They noted that during the heaviest hunting the deer just found safety and hunkered down.
As you (BSK) mentioned about the study of collared does. They noted that during the heaviest hunting the deer just found safety and hunkered down.
BSK
Well-Known Member
Although there are always exceptions to every rule, having had the opportunity to look at a lot of hunter data (where hunters were hunting and what they saw), the two biggest mistakes I see hunters make are:
1) Hunting the same places over and over. Yes, there are exceptions where hunters find a narrow escape route deer use to avoid hunting pressure which can produce sightings day after day. However, those situations are exceedingly rare. In the vast majority of cases, the more a spot is hunted, the less deer use the location in daylight.
2) Sitting in shooting houses overlooking food plots. This mistake is exacerbated in a good acorn year. When acorns are available, hunters are dramatically reducing their chances at seeing deer by sitting over a food plot hunt after hunt.
