Deer in Saratoga
Edith Cook
Two years ago I moved to Saratoga, Wyoming, where I discovered a population of deer wandering the quiet streets with graceful movements and regal yet gentle appearance. Soulful liquid brown eyes closely observe human traffic. I watched a doe suckle twin fawns in the middle of the road. It was delightful. By the following spring, when I experienced the downside of our nimble co-inhabitants, I had learned enough about deer to tolerate their intrusions.
As a prey species attuned to almost any environment, deer adjust to human encroachment; consequently, they often claim as habitat the urbanized layout of their formally wild range. An acute sense of smell is a first line of defense: The nose on a deer is eight times as large as the human one, and three times as large as that of a dog. Their sense of hearing is another asset that far exceeds our own: Big ears flex and rotate constantly to detect sounds near and far. Whether a “silent” dog whistle or the crunch of a leaf underfoot, deer will note the sound.
Superior eyesight helps deer escape predators and human hunters alike. Their large, prominent eyes detect movement even in the dim light of dawn or dusk. The placement of a deer’s eyes allows for binocular vision (both eyes focusing) in the front and monocular vision in a wide arc on the sides and toward the back of the head. A tradeoff for a deer’s superior night vision is that it cannot easily detect a motionless object or a quietly-standing human. Its color perception is limited as well.
A deer’s best defense against a predator is to run. Its long legs and powerful muscles make for quick bursts of speed, and its cloven hoofs provide traction even on treacherous terrain. A deer’s coat offers additional protection, camouflaging its presence among bushes and trees.
Nevertheless, the incursions of newly-arrived Europeans caused deer populations to drop precipitously. While the close observation of wildlife by Native Americans caused them to burn stretches of land, thereby encouraging rapid new forage growth that benefitted the wildlife on which they depended for sustenance, Europeans laid a heavy hand on the environment, evidently believing that natural resources would remain infinite. From 1733 to 1755, authorities in the port of Savanna recorded traders shipping 600,000 white-tail hides to Europe. This was but one instance of harvesting that happened all over the American continent. It drove deer populations to the edge of extinction.
Deer undergo two complete molts every year. Its winter coat is nearly twice as dense as its summer coat, and its hair is hollow. A thick layer of fat, acquired during the good times, acts against starvation in winter. As temperatures drop, deer experience a slowing of their metabolic rate. Bucks shed their antlers and does halt fetus development. Even so, winters can impede deer survival. Winter food holds little nutrition, and snow on the ground is difficult to navigate. Windchill factors can make the cold barely survivable. I watched helplessly as small groups of deer searched exposed patches of a neighbor’s lawn for sparse forage.
In the spring of the following year I discovered the downside of deer in the environments we create. At night my lovely deer population scarfed carefully tended plants. Petunia and geranium blossoms disappeared soon after they bloomed in their containers.
I moved the containers into the backyard, which was enclosed by a six-foot fence and patrolled by Abby, my dog. In front I planted Russian sage and yarrow, with marigold spaced in between. While the Russian sage and yarrow thrived, my marigold plantings that, I was told, deer tended to avoid, fell prey to their grazing. But my container flowers did well out in back, and wildflowers, grown from seed against a house wall, added a riot of color.
Until a backyard crabapple tree bore its first bountiful harvest of fruit. While residing in Cheyenne, I once made crabapple jelly and decided, never again. It required much patience and massive amounts of sugar—crab apples consist mostly of huge pits and tough, sour skin. Come to find out, deer love them! My dog had died, so I lacked the previous deterrent. A young buck easily jumped the fence to munch on fallen crab apples. My partner stepped out to watch him “leap the fence easy as pie,” he reported.
Once a deer has discovered a favorite food, sooner or later it will return when humans are asleep in their beds. While visiting my backyard the second time (at night, of course) he not only feasted on the crab apples but also on the potted geranium, where every blossom disappeared overnight, and on the tomatoes that bore the first blush of ripening. This time he left alone the petunia and the marigold, but that was small consolation when I surveyed my ransacked geranium and tomato plants.
The potted geranium I brought inside, but a hanging one was high enough to escape deer grazing. As for the tomatoes, I’ve given up raising them. I had joined the Saratoga Community Garden, whose enclosure is too high for a deer to venture inside. Since then my partner and I have enjoyed raising food crops for ourselves and members-at-large. An annual fundraising event, the Pesto Festo dinner, had us work hard to prepare quality fare for 45 diners plus ten to twelve of the 17 active gardeners.
I’ve come to appreciate my high-altitude town with its famous mineral hot springs that are open 24/7 (without charge) and fewer than 2000 inhabitants. My partner loves the nearby 10,000-plus Snowy Range and enjoys introducing me to the trails he has explored since moving here on retirement. Occasionally a moose will cross our path while birds draw out admiration with their flights and dives. Autumn is here, and deer have begun to retreat to their winter range. The cycle continues.
Susie
On Oct 2, 2024, at 10:10 AM, Edith Cook <e104...@gmail.com> wrote:
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C.M. PASCAL
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Subject: Re: [edith-cook] Deer in Saratoga
