Question - Deer leaving their Home Range

[lincolntom]

I don't run cameras, but I've read on here about bucks leaving their home range during the rut. I guess what I don't understand is why would a mature buck do this? If mature bucks are migrating outside their core area throughout the rut, they are pretty much just each breeding other buck's core area does.

It seems odd to me that a mature buck, bent on survival, would risk the familiarity of their core area to wander into potentially unfamiliar territory for breeding. Why don't they just stay put in their familiar core area and breed their local does? Seems like it would reduce the chances of their getting killed by a hunter as well.

 

[Millaway31]

i've always heard and read in magazines that a buck will travel up to a 10 mile radias during the rut. You have to think about it this way, if you only got the chance to breed one time to two times a year, wouldn't you do some stuff out of your ordinary for a women? Bucks get sensless when breeding season rolls around, just like a man that has maybe had a few beers and a pretty women comes walking by winking at you lol. The smell of a hot doe to a mature buck is the same thing as a pretty women winking at a man. Maybe this will help you, its the best way i know to explain it to you

 

[scn]

I'm sure it is nature's way of maximizing genetic diversity.

If the bucks stayed in their core areas breeding the same does year after year, pretty soon the genetic tree would not have many branches. That leads to problems.

 

[landman]

Well if you wasn't married, only got to have sex
2 or 3 times a year...wouldn't you look for more???

 

[landman]

scn's version does sound much more politically
correct than mine...biologically too!

 

[lincolntom]

Bucks get sensless when breeding season rolls around, just like a man that has maybe had a few beers and a pretty women comes walking by winking at you lol. The smell of a hot doe to a mature buck is the same thing as a pretty women winking at a man. Maybe this will help you, its the best way i know to explain it to you

Oh I know WHAT drives them to do it. But what I don't understand is why a buck would leave his own harem in his familiar, safe core area to breed another buck's harem in an unfamiliar area, while some other buck comes in and breeds his harem. By doing this, the buck's are wandering in unfamiliar terrain increasing their chance to be killed.

 

[8 POINTS OR BETTER]

From what I have seen some bucks will keep their core areas the same and some will shift their core area about the the time of velvet shedding. Most of the ones that move that I've been able to track move their core areas 3/4 to 1 mile from their summer core area.

 

[FARMTOFIELD]

I'm sure it is nature's way of maximizing genetic diversity.

If the bucks stayed in their core areas breeding the same does year after year, pretty soon the genetic tree would not have many branches. That leads to problems.

Natures way of preventing to much inbreeding I suppose

 

[BSK]

I'm sure it is nature's way of maximizing genetic diversity.

If the bucks stayed in their core areas breeding the same does year after year, pretty soon the genetic tree would not have many branches. That leads to problems.

Trying to decipher animal behavior is often an effort in futility. We cannot get inside animals' heads so we can never know why they do the things they do.

But when looking at behaviors that are common in a species, often looking at survival of the individual, survival of the species, or the spread of genetic material (hereditary traits) provides some plausible speculations that can explain the behavior. In white-tailed deer, many behaviors cannot be explained by looking at survival of the individual. In fact, the behavior may run completely contrary to survival of the individual. The answer may be linked to survival of the species and the spread of genetic material.

I believe scn is correct, in that bucks expanding or shifting their range during the rut is not helpful to the survival of an individual buck, but that behavior is very helpful in spreading and mixing genetic material across large geographic areas. In addition, the white-tailed species has an unusually high degree of genetic diversity within localized populations. It has been speculated, and I agree wholeheartedly, that the species is so successful BECAUSE of this extreme genetic diversity. Most species use fine-tuning of specific genetic traits that increase survival and reproductive success to maintain the population over the long-term. However, it appears the white-tailed species has found a "different way" of being successful, and that is through maximizing genetic diversity. With enough genetic diversity, some members of any population will be able to survive just about any change they are subject to, out of shear chance.