Don Lyman
The Boston Globe, December 2, 2022
A deer crossed Unquity Road in Milton just before the start of the Blue Hills deer hunt in November 2015. ARAM BOGHOSIAN FOR THE BOSTON GLOBE/FILE
Whenever I see white-tailed deer in the woods, one thing that impresses me most is how cryptic they are. Their brown coat blends in surprisingly well with the surrounding forest, and I often end up walking within 20 or 30 feet of a deer before I notice it. At that point, they usually bound away, tail raised in alarm, showing off the white underside that is their namesake. The other thing that impresses me about white-tailed deer is how big they are.
“They’re about 3 feet tall at the shoulder, and you can add another 2 to 3 feet in height for the head and neck,” said Martin Feehan, Deer and Moose Project Leader for the Massachusetts Division of Fisheries and Wildlife.
The MassWildlife white-tailed deer webpage says they can reach a body length of 6 feet, and weigh up to 120 pounds for females (does) and 160 pounds for males (bucks).
And this is the time of year when the most vehicle collisions with deer occur. There were a reported 9,891 crashes in Massachusetts involving a collision with a deer from Jan. 1, 2019 to Dec. 31, 2021, according to Massachusetts Department of Transportation spokeswoman Judith Reardon Riley.
“People need to be careful from mid-October to early December,” said Feehan. “This is when deer are breeding. Does are at peak ovulation, and male deer are in chase phase, searching for does to mate with.”
Deer are most active at dawn and dusk, which coincides with people’s commutes since we turned the clocks back for daylight saving, Feehan explained. He said Massachusetts ranks around 25th in the nation for annual deer collisions.
And rutting — male deer breeding behavior — puts a lot of stress on bucks.
“It’s common for bucks to die due to the stresses of rutting,” said Feehan. “They barely eat because they’re looking for does and defending territories. And bucks fight with each other. Their necks swell to twice their normal size because of the surge of testosterone. Sometimes their antlers lock together when they fight, and they may actually drag a dead buck along because they can’t get their antlers untangled.”
Only bucks have antlers, said Feehan. New antlers, which are made of bone, begin growing in spring and summer, and are shed once a year in winter after the breeding season. Adult deer in Massachusetts don’t have much to worry about in the way of predators, but young deer — or fawns — do.
“Twenty-five to thirty percent of fawns are predated by coyotes and black bears,” said Feehan. “Domestic dogs will prey on fawns too, but it’s not common.”
Does usually give birth to two fawns between late May and early July, in different locations to reduce the risk of predation, said Feehan.
Fawns go through three stages of development. There’s the bed phase, when they can walk, but can’t run, which lasts about eight days, when they lie still and won’t move until the doe comes back.
The flush phase lasts from eight to 40 days, when if fawns feel threatened, they will run about 75 to 200 yards and bed back down to hide.
After 30 to 40 days, fawns enter the third phase, where they stick around with their mother, and can run from predators.
“But most predations occur at the beginning of this phase,” said Feehan, “because fawns are more confident, but they can’t run as fast as they think they can, so it’s easier for predators to catch them.”
People also pose a threat to fawns, said Feehan, because they find a fawn and think it’s been abandoned, so they take it, thinking they’re helping.
“Their heart is in the right place, but it leads to a bad outcome,” said Feehan. “Fawns often don’t survive when people take them. Leave fawns alone. It’s really critical. It’s also illegal to take fawns.”
In suburban areas, deer often eat flowers and other ornamental plants in people’s yards, said Feehan. They’ll also feed on fruit and vegetables including pumpkins, corn, and apples, as well as evergreens like spruce, yew, and hemlock.
“This frustrates people because of damage to their plants,” said Feehan. “And farmers can sustain economic damage from deer eating their crops.”
Deer can run as fast as 40 miles per hour, according to MassWildlife, and can jump up to 9 feet high and 25 feet across.
“You need 8- to 10-foot-high fences to stop deer,” said Feehan.
In the forest, deer eat a variety of vegetation, including maple and oak seedlings, as well as berries. In winter, they switch from a high-calorie diet of fresh greens to a low-calorie, high-fiber diet of woody vegetation like twigs, said Feehan.
“It’s a much rougher diet, and deer can get food-stressed in winter,” said Feehan. “But we have milder winters in Massachusetts now because of climate change, so deer are not usually food-stressed.”
Deer hunting season runs from early October until the end of December. An average of 14,000 deer a year have been taken by hunters for the past five years.
Feehan said there are about 120,000 deer in Massachusetts.
“There’s just about no place they’re not found,” said Feehan, “except downtown Boston. They’re even found on islands, including the Boston Harbor Islands and Martha’s Vineyard. The highest density of deer per area is on Nantucket.”
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