Whitetail Buck Home Range Size by Age, August 2014

In case you have not seen this new recent info . . .



http://www.qdma.com/articles/new-data-on-buck-home-range-size-by-age

New Data On Buck Home-Range Size by Age

August 19, 2014





AND


http://www.qdma.com/articles/gps-reveals-early-season-buck-movement-patterns

GPS Reveals Early Season Buck Movement Patterns

August 25, 2014

Very interesting. Although I can ask a couple questions. Does a 3 month study really show us a home range? By covering the most volatile time in their year? The Rut?

Also, the 4 yr old bucks they show one staying 100 or so acres and another going out 500+...trying to attribute this to food IMO is wrong. If the other bucks can eat in this smaller range the rest can too. Dominance plays a part and during the hunting months of the rut, a dominant deer will run other bucks off and force them elsewhere. Someone who gets their butt whooped everytime they chase a doe around a certain area is certainly going to go look for another area.

The Techamate story of Heart Attack and how he vanished late in his life while another 4 yr old stud 8 point ran the area comes to mind. They went and took this 8 pointer out and within a week Heart Attack was back showing himself and running the show. Social dynamics are more important than these studies can show.

GTHunter007 said:

Very interesting. Although I can ask a couple questions. Does a 3 month study really show us a home range? By covering the most volatile time in their year? The Rut?

Also, the 4 yr old bucks they show one staying 100 or so acres and another going out 500+...trying to attribute this to food IMO is wrong. If the other bucks can eat in this smaller range the rest can too. Dominance plays a part and during the hunting months of the rut, a dominant deer will run other bucks off and force them elsewhere. Someone who gets their butt whooped everytime they chase a doe around a certain area is certainly going to go look for another area.

The Techamate story of Heart Attack and how he vanished late in his life while another 4 yr old stud 8 point ran the area comes to mind. They went and took this 8 pointer out and within a week Heart Attack was back showing himself and running the show. Social dynamics are more important than these studies can show.

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What can you expect? It's an Auburn study.

That's cool. Interesting stuff.

Hammer Spank said:

What can you expect? It's an Auburn study.

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interesting study, thanks for posting.

There was also a buck with a tracking collar that would travel 10 miles at the start of hunting season and would stay on a small track of land here in GA and would return to it's home spot at the end of hunting season.He made this trip 3 times that it was recorded.

Hammer Spank said:

What can you expect? It's an Auburn study.

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Now That's Funny!LOL

So explain to me again how you QDMA 100 acres?

They will tell you you can do it by increasing the appeal of your habitat. Thus holding deer to smaller home ranges. In hopes you will fully neglect the fact that nature disperses for a reason and the animals have a hierarchy for breeding. Of course the story they will cite is one that focuses on what makes them money...following our rules will increase your opportunity to see and harvest animals, so give us money so you can continue to receive this information.

Forget the fact the study was done by a public University and likely funded solely by that university.

each circle is a single deer. it looks great but im afraid i dont see a pattern in it.

Good Stuff !!!

If I am reading this right there were 4 or 5 old mature bucks with overlapping home ranges. It appears they tolerated each other in some manner.

There was another multi-state study shared recently, that took place over at least a full year and was actually multiple years of data if I recall correctly. I'll see if I can find it later to share. But basically this study said that a mature buck would roam as much as 5 or more miles during the rut, had most of his yearly activity located in a few hundred acres, and over 90% of that activity occurring in as little as 5 acres for the 50 weeks outside of the rut. You can manage small properties by creating sanctuaries for deer to call home and limiting hunting pressure.

ryanh487 said:

There was another multi-state study shared recently, that took place over at least a full year and was actually multiple years of data if I recall correctly. I'll see if I can find it later to share. But basically this study said that a mature buck would roam as much as 5 or more miles during the rut, had most of his yearly activity located in a few hundred acres, and over 90% of that activity occurring in as little as 5 acres for the 50 weeks outside of the rut. You can manage small properties by creating sanctuaries for deer to call home and limiting hunting pressure.

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That may have been the PA study.

Add hunting pressure to the mix......

by Darren Warner


Hunters know that putting too much pressure on whitetails can alter deer activity. We often hear that putting too much pressure on a mature buck makes it go nocturnal for the rest of the hunting season. But how much pressure is too much?
In a recent study of South Carolina bucks, just a single day of light-impact hunting made bucks avoid the area for several days.
At the recent Quality Deer Management Association conference, Ohio DNR biologist Clint McCoy presented findings of a new study of buck movements in South Carolina. While a grad student at Auburn University, McCoy placed GPS collars on 37 bucks living in the Brosnan Forest of the South Carolina low-country. The tracking equipment on bucks ranging in age from 1.5 to 4.5 years of age and older enabled McCoy to get a bead on each buck’s location every 30 minutes from Aug. 24 through Nov. 22. Breeding season occurred between late September and October.
The 6,400-acre study area consists of high-quality deer habitat: a mix of long-leaf pine stands, oak trees, and swamps. More than 100 food plots and 60 feeders keep deer on the property. Tractors and ATVs were used to transport hunters to their stands, so there was minimal intrusion on the deer.
Hunting season on the property opened on Sept. 15 and extended through the study period. Around each of the 100 hunting stands on the property, McCoy designated a visual danger zone, meaning bucks that moved through the area while visible to a hunter on stand were at risk of being harvested. After studying the data, McCoy was surprised to find how bucks’ experiences with hunter-occupied stands affected their patterns over the next several days.
“After a hunter had sat in a stand for just one day, bucks would stay out of the danger zone of that stand for the next three full days, meaning they wouldn’t return, on average, until the fourth day,” explained McCoy. “This finding wasn’t affected by whether a hunter had shot; just occupation of the stand made deer alter their movements.”
In other words, if a hunter occupied a stand for just one day, they were better off staying out of the stand for the next three days. Bucks stayed out of the danger zone around that stand for three days.
By the end of the study period, adult buck movements averaged 55 yards farther away from stands than on Aug. 24. Yearling bucks showed no difference in their average distance from stands as the season progressed, although it should be noted that hunters didn’t harvest yearling bucks.
Not surprisingly, deer’s use of bait sites decreased as the hunting season progressed, as did the percentage of visitation of bait sites during daylight hours. On opening day, half of all bait site visits by bucks occurred during the day. By the end of the season, only 25 percent of bait visits happened during daylight hours.
Finally, most hunters assume that older bucks are just smarter than younger bucks. For example, we think that mature bucks have survived by quickly learning how to avoid hunting pressure. That assumption didn’t hold up in McCoy’s study.
“When I calculated the probability of each buck staying out of the danger zone of each stand location, age had no effect on the likelihood of bucks staying clear of hunters,” McCoy noted. “Older bucks didn’t stay out of danger zones any more or less than younger bucks.”
The bottom line? Keep track of how often you hunt your stands, and make sure to mix things up. If you're not careful, you could overhunt your favorite spots before you know it. For more info on mature buck movements, check out QDMA's research roundup here