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Show Setting better acquainted with the deer family Bv j FORD ANDERSON , There are many lamilies other I1' the human family living 'W in this area. One of these is K neer Family. They live around Vnart of the year, and of course 1 v have been doing this for ;Snturies, and long before the white 1'ancame. 5 They have their regular routine hich they follow every year, and !-ev have their troubles with Vblems as well as the human They arrive here on their winter nge when the snow pushes them 5 tt of the high areas, usually about ic-tober or November. k can imagine a large buck "oking over the valley as he jnders down off the high mounting moun-ting and thinking about the Sanges man made to alter their Bimer range. How many fences t:,ve been built to shut the deer out their feeding grounds which they 've been using for thousands of year after year their range has en reduced. Man has gradually eeped in on the land until deer are ving difficulty finding enough jd to survive. Fences are moving ! ,jj,er and roads and trails are ecting their food supply. : ;Man sends sheep up on the range and deer don't mix well with sheep. Deer can't stand to live around them. They smell different and they contaminate feed so deer have to move to another area.- "You will never find us associating with sheep. We can stand cattle but not sheep," the buck might say if he could speak. Deer would rather stay in the high country but the snow gets so deep that they can't get at the grass. As the snow deepens they move down so they can eat. And it is usually late October or November when they reach bottom. It depends on the amount of snow and when it comes down. Sometimes their arrival varies some. Surprisingly enough when the deer come, they are followed by predators who are also looking for sustenance. A forest service ranger said that there usually is a lion (puma) that follows each dear herd and will kill a deer about every ten days. Coyotes are nQt a serious threat to larger deer. If they attack it is usually the fawns or ones that are sick or weak from malnutrition. The does and the fawns are usually the first to come down and by late January the bucks show up. It is very common to find the herds broken up into does and fawns with some yearling males running together. There are also larger groups called batchelor herds. The high country has vast areas of excellent range amounting to many thousands of acres for summer months of feeding. It is much different in the winter range which is limited to some 1,000 acres on the Wasatch front and this is being pushed back by developers continually. New homes are cropping up in large numbers. The deer are finding it harder each year to scrounge a meal. During hard winters they come right down into the valley and even as far as Utah Lake to find shelter and food. Malnutrition kills many deer. Old timers here say that they have seen as many as 150 to 200 deer come down into the Manila area. The deer usually come back to the same area each year unless storms prevent them from making it over the regular trail. In this case they may shift to another direction against their will. Oak is the main food for deer. They eat the small twigs and paw the leaves up from under the snow if the snow is not too deep. Sometimes the snow is too deep and they move down into the valley and eat what they can find such as shrubs, trees, and whatever they can find that is palatable. Oak is also good cover for them. When it gets below zero and the windstorm from the North causes severe blizzards, I often wonder how they survive. The food is very difficult to come by. It is then that they lay under the oaks and let the snow blow across them covering them sometimes until you wouldn't know they were there. Then, I suppose, that hard winters are difficult for all families including in-cluding the human family. The Indians and pioneers used buckskin to make foot wear and clothes and many other things. The hide of deer is real tough. I guess the deer is about as rugged an animal as there is. " I have counted as many as 287 deer from my frontroom window in my home in Manila in the winter months when the range is open. They are graceful and beautiful, always alert, swift, and healthy. February is the time the bucks will drop their horns. They immediately im-mediately start to grow back from just a stub with each year making them larger and stronger. There is a soft felt that grows over the surface of the horn while the horns are growing. When the antler becomes its full size the bucks will rub the felt off as much as they can Dy rubbine trees. Deer interest people in different ways. Some like to watch them and their beautiful and graceful actions. Some like to hunt and kill them for recreation. Some like to hunt them and kill them for their meat. Some like to make pets out of them. When you think of the cost of a deer hunt it makes the meat very expensive. During the summer their coat turns to a beautiful reddish color. This is to match the lovely summer shrubbery and to furnish camouflage for protection against predators. It would be a crime to lose this beautiful natural park along the Wasatch front. It seems that people even from the largest cities want to come out and spend some time with nature in its splendor, and Utah has much of it. Sometimes many of the deer are lost and many are weakened when they go through a period of severe malnutrition. Even if the deer is alive when the weather breaks, they sometimes die before the food gets a chance in their system to take hold. The food is too late. The same thing happens to other animals when they suffer from malnutrition. Once in a great while you might see a white deer which is called an albino. I saw one up above Manila from my living room window. It was a fawn following its mother. It was there the next year also. But after that I never saw it again. White deer are very vulnerable to predators because of poor camouflage. When dogs form packs or even when two of them get together, they become very vicious hunters. They attack the deer and run them down. Dogs can easily kill a deer, even the larger deer. They get them so tired they can't go any farther and then attack when they are exhausted. It is against the law for dogs to kill or harass wild life. They can be shot if this happens. Dogs become the hunter when they get into this atmosphere. They change from pets to killers. When the deer have lived through the winter on their winter range they start to move up and over the top of Mahogany, about May 1 each year. However, there are a few that stay down here all summer in the orchards and have been here for years. It is usually older ones that don't seem to have the energy to climb to the top of the mountain. Kind of like me of the human family. |