Deer Biology
An important part of an integrated pest management strategy is understanding the biology of animals that we sometimes consider to be pests. Once there is a knowledge about what pest animals eat, where they are likely to seek shelter, their eating and mating habits, it is much easier to control their population so that it does not grow to pestilential proportions.
Deer are probably the biggest garden pest that there is in the United States, both in terms of distribution and size. They can do a lot of damage to a garden or to landscaping efforts in a very short period of time, and the damage that they inflict can encompass a surprising number of areas. Let’s take a look at the biology of deer in order to more fully grasp how they can be controlled.
The role of the deer in the natural world
In the wild, there are only a few cardinal rules, one of which is that larger animals are either predators or prey. Deer are the main diet of all of the large predators which can be found in North America, including wolves, coyotes, and cougars. Unfortunately in settled areas - and that includes most of the United States - these are the first animals to disappear, through hunting inspired by fear or for protection of livestock. The result is a deer population that is entirely free of natural predation and can only be controlled through hunting, something which has done little to curb population explosions anywhere.
So when humans move in, deer tend to thrive, particularly when there are forested tracts still standing for shelter as well as easy food to be found in the form of crops, gardens, and landscaping.
Deer life cycle
Deer only give birth once a year, with does having one or two fawns. Twins are very common, particularly in areas where there is a low presence of danger and rich food sources. Deer are very resilient creatures and without predation mortality among fawns is very low, so both babies can be expected to survive to adulthood and breeding age.
The result is a near tripling of the number of deer in an area every year, and that is why deer numbers in the US have grown to such staggering proportions. In most States, one can expect to see herds of deer from highways and side roads every day, usually around twilight and dawn.
The explosion of the deer population in many areas is a great concern to wildlife management officials. Large numbers have not only led to property destruction - in some locations on a very large scale - but also to the spread of disease among the deer population. Chronic wasting disease is currently a large concern, as not only does it have a high rate of infection among deer herds but may also spread to domestic livestock.