NORTH DAKOTA OUTDOORS MAGAZINE

Running Without Interruption

Ron Wilson

If you use the first time a specific license was required to hunt deer in North Dakota as when the seed was planted, that means this time-honored, eagerly anticipated fall pastime is roughly 90 years old.

Or you could say that deer hunting didn’t really take root until 1954, as that year marked the first of nearly 70 deer seasons that have run without pause.

Maybe it doesn’t matter.

What does, as today’s hunters would eagerly attest, is that North Dakota’s 16½-day deer gun season will without doubt open on a Friday at noon somewhere between Nov. 4 and Nov. 10, depending on how the calendar falls.

Like the coming of winter on the Northern Plains, the arrival of the deer season is beyond question.

Big Ears, White Tails

The 2022 deer gun season is like all the seasons that came before it in that many of the participants will be hunting deer for the first time.

And an untold number will be carrying tags that provide them the opportunity to shoot a white-tailed deer, mule deer or, in some instances, either or.

That being true, and as elementary as it may seem to veteran hunters, not everyone will know the difference between the two species.

Bill Jensen, North Dakota Game and Fish Department big game management biologist who has spent 30-plus years helping to manage both species in the state, offers this:

“The whitetail got its name because it has a big white tail. The mule deer got its name because it has big ears like a mule. The antlers of a mule deer are bifurcated, or they divide and then divide again, which is distinctive. Whereas the antlers on a whitetail, the main beam comes up, goes out and curls forward,” he said. “The tail of a mule deer is not as heavily furred. It tends to be kind of ropey with a black tip. But mule deer have a big white butt … that’s their primary signaling message on hair color. Also, mule deer tend to be a little grayer in terms of hair color.”

Mule deer doe exhibiting the stotting gait
Mule deer doe stotting

The animals, at times, move differently and it’s noticeable.

“Mule deer have sort of a distinctive gait where when alarmed they bounce across the landscape. It’s called stotting, a Scottish term for bounce,” Jensen said. “Whereas whitetails just tend to have an all-out, bolt run.”

Jensen said there’s some evidence that stotting is a signaling mechanism for young or other members of the family group that there’s danger nearby. There are other theories, too, that it’s a better means of traveling across the landscape and being able to get above the vegetation and see. But that’s yet to be determined, he added.

“There are all these sorts of signaling mechanisms that animals have and for whitetails to signal danger to other members of the group they’ll raise their white tail and flash it back and forth,” Jensen said. “And as I mentioned earlier, mule deer don’t have the big tail, but they have a large white butt and that’s what it uses to signals others.”

When hunters bump a whitetail or mule deer, the manner of departure for both species is often different.

“Whitetails primarily evolved in more of a wooded, forested setting. So, when they first observe danger or people, they’re generally really pretty close and they bolt.” Jensen said. “Whereas mule deer are predominantly in more open, arid country and rugged terrain. If they were bolting every time they saw a coyote, they’d be running all the time. They’ll stand up and look and size up the danger, which makes some people think they’re stupid. It’s just that if they’re going to react the same way as whitetail, they’d be running around all the time.”

Snail and Slugs

Young mule deer buck

Mule deer are largely found in western North Dakota, but these animals have extended their range eastward over time. Today, spotting a group of mule deer in, say, central North Dakota and somewhat farther east, is hardly a head-turner as it once was.

As Jensen explained it, the ranges of animals are never constant or stable.

“Prior to European settlement, the mule deer range extended well into Minnesota, but they got shot back, there was a lot of land conversion and whitetails came in,” Jensen said. “One of the things that I think is primarily influencing changes in range of whitetail and mule deer right now is that whitetail carry a parasite, a brain worm. They can tolerate it. When mule deer, elk and moose get infected, they have neurological problems and die. The intermediate host for that parasite are snails and slugs. And if the climate or the habitat changes and it can’t support the intermediate host, then mule deer can coexist in those areas.

“It’s been a slow process over the last 20, 30 years, and now it’s not uncommon to see mule deer north and east of the Missouri River on the Missouri Coteau and even out into the drift prairie,” he added. “The prevalence of the parasite in whitetails is still high in the Red River Valley. And so, you’re rarely going to see mule deer that far east. They may wander into the area, but I wouldn’t expect them to be able to establish themselves there.”

Habitat, Habitat, Habitat

The Game and Fish Department made available 64,200 deer gun licenses for the 2022 season, the majority of which were for white-tailed deer. When you do the math, that’s 62,139 more licenses than were made available to hunters in 1931 when a specific license was required for the first time to hunt deer in North Dakota.

Hailed today as maybe the most adaptable big game animal in North America, for many years following that first season (it wasn’t until 1945 that more than 10,000 tags were made available to hunters) spotting a whitetail, no matter the time of year, was certainly a conversation starter at the local café.

Whitetail populations back in the day, Jensen said, were such because of the lack of habitat. But as the landscape changed, this adaptable animal started growing in numbers.

“After the Dirty Thirties and the drought, people started establishing tree rows to protect the soil from erosion. That had benefits to a wide variety of wildlife, including whitetail deer,” Jensen said. “All the other components started falling in place, too. There are crops that they could take advantage of, along with a nice mix of cover habitat like wetlands or cattail marshes, which are pretty important habitat for whitetail deer.”

White-tailed buck

While whitetail numbers are certainly more robust than they were decades ago, the amount of wildlife habitat on the landscape has been trending in the wrong direction.

Jensen wrote in North Dakota OUTDOORS earlier this fall that quality deer habitat is not as abundant as in the past … particularly in the eastern third of the state, which limits the potential for population recovery.

“For example, Grand Forks County used to have the highest density of tree rows in the nation, and that was pretty characteristic of the Red River Valley. And that same density of tree rows extended well out onto the drift prairie, too, but with modern farming practices, computerized tractors, bigger machinery, those tree rows are being removed to expedite farming,” Jensen said. “Considering that, there’s really no place for a whitetail deer to have a fawn. I mean, sure, they can have the fawn in a plowed field, but they tend to get picked off by coyotes that way. There’s been some work done where fawns that are born in plowed fields have a higher susceptibility to the cold and die of hypothermia. They don’t need a lot, but they need something.”

What wildlife habitat that remains across the landscape looks good this year compared to 2021 when the state was in the crippling grip of drought. Heading into winter, deer and other wildlife will at least be afforded better quality habitat when the weather turns than a year ago.

“Right now, the bucks are in the best condition they’ll be all year and they’ve been putting on weight all summer. But with the start of the rut, their body condition is going to slowly deteriorate over time until they’re pretty well spent by the end of December, when all breeding ceases,” Jensen said. “The does are still putting on food reserves, but once they hit winter, they can’t really eat enough to gain any more weight. So as the winter progresses, it’s kind of like a bucket with a hole in it. And the longer the winter is, the more severe the winter is, the more energy reserves are going to drain out of that bucket.”

And if they run out of fat reserves before the winter ends, they die. If they still have energy reserves when spring comes, they live and get to reproduce again.

Return to North Dakota Outdoors November 2022 Edition