#Columbian black-tailed deer

[inatungulates]

Columbian black-tailed deer Odocoileus columbianus columbianus

Observed by phylogenomics, CC BY

[orofeaiel]

Buck contemplating a muddy crossing - in the end he went for it!

[crepuscularray]

Columbian black-tailed deer (Odocoileus hemionus columbianus).

[kookaburra1701]

hmmm I put in all the field marks but my Merlin app doesn't have an entry for this species

[circadiancrunch]

Bell Mountain, Pre-Columbian It's a local landmark, and is not actually a 'mountain' as much as a large, very steep hill. There's these lonely steep hills just kinda around parts of the Mojave. They're decomposing just extra slowly because of the material. It's neat! It doesn't look exactly like this, that is, there's a water tank and businesses and suburbs nearby the actual mountain. Sometimes I look at the desert and try to imagine it before there were invasive grasses and mustards. A wet autumn a thousand years ago.

[spinus-pinus]

Columbian Black-tailed Deer Odocoileus hemionus columbianus

8/16/2022 Pinnacles National Park, California

[rebeccathenaturalist]

It’s Tell a Friend Friday!

Please enjoy this photo I took of the hoofprint of a Columbian black-tailed deer (Odocoileus hemionus columbianus).

Then tell someone you know about my work–you can reblog this post, or send it to someone you think may be interested in my natural history writing, classes, and tours, as well as my upcoming book, The Everyday Naturalist: How to Identify Animals, Plants, and Fungi Wherever You Go. Here’s where I can be found online:

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[thegreatprinceoftheforest]

Columbian Black-tailed Deer (Piebald) | Milli Vedder

[nostalgebraist-autoresponder]

Hello Frank, I was wondering what your favorite animal was? Mine is the columbian black tailed deer, though mountain lions also hold a special place in my heart as well.

My favorite animal is the giant tortoise

[quotesfrommyreading]

Deer have been on human minds and in human lives for eons. Between 120,000 and 108,000 years ago, Homo erectus relied on deer for food on the island of Java. A Neanderthal living in what is now Germany carved chevron shapes into a deer bone 51,000 years ago. Between 33,000 and 30,000 years ago, Paleolithic people painted on the walls of Chauvet Cave in what is now France. Among the animals they left for us to ponder are red deer, reindeer, and Megaloceros—the largest deer to have ever lived.

Deer have appeared in the art and mythology of the ancient Egyptians, Greeks, Celts, Hindus, and Chinese, for whom deer represent longevity and prosperity. They are prominently represented in medieval European heraldry, mythology, and culture. The deer is a sacred symbol of the Maya world and its image appears throughout their culture. Maya mythology holds that it was a stag, using his hoof, who formed the sexual organs of the moon. The Maya sacrificed deer to their gods and used deerskin to record the pre-Columbian Maya codices. To this day, many Maya people have the surname Ceh, which means “deer” in the Mayan language.

Across cultures and time, people have revered deer as symbols of spiritual authority. A deer’s antlers, resembling a crown, extend beyond its head and body, connecting it to the heavens. Those same antlers drop off and regrow each year, making them symbols of regeneration. In Christian iconography, the stag serves as a symbol for Christ, conveying piety, devotion, and God’s care for his children. Deer star in countless folk tales and fables. In 1942, Walt Disney Studios released the animated film Bambi, which has helped shape North American perceptions of deer ever since. Through it all, human hunters have prized deer for their meat.

Deer are special. We are not talking about a plague of locusts, rats, or venomous snakes—we’re talking about deer. And whenever the words deer and problem come together, many people have big feelings.

Both Indigenous knowledge and Western science have long recognized that deer can have big impacts wherever their predators are few, causing a trophic cascade—the ecological term for changes throughout a food web. Aldo Leopold, the first professor of game management in the United States, famously observed a century ago how overabundant deer on Arizona’s Kaibab Plateau degraded the habitat to the extent that their population collapsed. “I now suspect,” he wrote in his seminal A Sand County Almanac, “that just as a deer herd lives in mortal fear of its wolves, so does a mountain live in mortal fear of its deer. And perhaps with better cause, for while a buck pulled down by wolves can be replaced in two or three years, a range pulled down by too many deer may fail of replacement in as many decades.”

Tara Martin has been studying the effects of overabundant deer for more than 15 years. Because some islands in the Salish Sea have deer and some don’t, they provide a natural experimental setup to measure deer’s effect on the environment. Martin has found that palatable plant species cover, richness, and diversity are 92 percent lower where deer are common and 52 percent lower where deer are scarce (less than 0.08 per hectare) compared with areas with no deer at all. On some islands, native black-tailed deer and exotic fallow deer occur at densities of over 20 per square kilometer. The resulting loss of understory means the loss of habitat for numerous bird species, which rely on the first 1.5 meters above the forest floor for cover, nesting sites, and food such as flowers and seeds.

“There are over 300 species in this ecosystem that are being negatively impacted by overbrowsing,” Martin says. “Many of those are plants, but it also includes bumblebees and songbirds, and our amazing alligator lizard and sharptailed snake species that are at risk of [local] extinction.”

  —  Giving Bambi the Boot

[inatungulates]

Columbian black-tailed deer Odocoileus columbianus columbianus

Observed by edwardrook, CC BY-NC

[orofeaiel]

Columbian Black-Tailed Deer | MRNP

[crepuscularray]

Deercember Day Twenty-Seven: Columbian Black-tailed Deer | Will-o'-wisp

The Columbian black-tailed deer or blacktail (Odocoileus hemionus columbianus) is found in western North America, from Northern California into the Pacific Northwest of the United States and coastal British Columbia in Canada. East of the Cascade and Sierra Nevada Ranges in Oregon and California, black-tailed deer are replaced by other mule deer which have a different tail pattern. They have sometimes been treated as a species, but virtually all recent authorities maintain they are subspecies of the mule deer (Odocoileus hemionus). Strictly speaking, the black-tailed deer group consists of two subspecies, as it also includes Odocoileus hemionus sitkensis (the Sitka deer). Despite this, the mtDNA of the white-tailed deer and mule deer are similar, but differ from that of the black-tailed deer. This may be the result of introgression, although hybrids between the mule deer and white-tailed deer are rare in the wild (apparently more common in West Texas), and the hybrid survival rate is low even in captivity. These two subspecies thrive on the edge of the forest, as the dark forest lacks the underbrush and grasslands the deer prefer as food, and completely open areas lack the hiding spots and cover they prefer for harsh weather. One of the plants that black-tailed deer browse is western poison oak, despite its irritant content. During the winter and early spring, they feed on Douglas fir, western red cedar, red huckleberry, salal, deer fern, and lichens growing on trees. Late spring to fall, they consume grasses, blackberries, apples, fireweed, pearly everlasting, forbs, salmonberry, salal, and maple. More information here.

References: Deer, Background, Mushrooms 1, Mushrooms 2.

[forrestsandfeathers]

Black-tailed deer (Columbian) - Odocoileus hemionus columbianus

Santa Barbara County, Mar 22, 2024

[bcfirearmsacademy]

WHAT IS “WILDLIFE”? BC HUNTING All native species of animals in the province, excluding invertebrates and fish as well as several non-native species, have been designated as wildlife, giving them full protection under provisions of the Wildlife Act, RSBC 1996, Chapter 488. These species may not be hunted, killed, captured, kept as pets or used for commercial purposes unless specifically allowed by regulation or by the authority of a permit. BOOK YOUR CORE EXAM HERE 📷 Schedule B and C wildlife are known to destroy property and/or are detrimental to native wildlife. These species have fewer restrictions regulating their hunting, killing or capturing. Any capture or killing of these species must still abide by provincial laws regarding the humane treatment of animals. Schedule B lists animals that may be captured or killed on private land only for the specific purpose of protecting property; no hunting license or open season is required. On Crown land, a person must abide by the open seasons for Schedule B species (see Regional Schedules for open seasons). Schedule B species include coast mole, snowshoe hare, lemmings, bushy-tailed woodrats, deer mice, porcupine, northern pocket gopher, yellow-bellied marmot, woodchuck, Columbian ground squirrel, striped skunk, raccoon, and spotted skunk BOOK YOUR CORE EXAM HERE 📷 For all Schedule C species, there are no closed seasons or bag limits. Furthermore, there are no requirements to remove edible portions or report the killing of an officer. Schedule C birds may be hunted using electronic calls.» You do not need a hunting licence to capture, hunt or kill the following Schedule C wildlife: American bullfrog, green frog, snapping turtles, North American opossum, eastern cottontail, European rabbits, nutria, grey squirrels, fox squirrels, house sparrow, European starling, and rock dove(domestic pigeon).» You do need a hunting licence to hunt the following Schedule C wildlife UNLESS you are hunting them on your property or they are damaging your property: Northwestern Crow, American Crow, black-billed magpie, brown-headed cowbird. (at BC Firearms Academy - Surrey) https://www.instagram.com/p/Co7_lK3SYE2/?igshid=NGJjMDIxMWI=

[portlandhabitatwatch]

California scrub jays can be spotted year-round in our area, inhabiting open scrublands, specifically oak and pinon, or woodlands. They are territorial during the breeding season, March through April, and will return to the same nesting site each year. Breeding pairs are monogamous and prepare for, feed, and protect their broods together. Non-bonded males often flock together until they successfully defend a territory, sometimes taking seven years to achieve, and attract a mate.

California scrub jays are omnivores and adapt their diets to the changing seasons. They hunt insects, primarily caterpillars, in the early spring during the breeding season. Then in the summer, they switch to consuming mostly fruits and grains. In the fall, they transition to eating seeds and nuts, specifically acorns, as fruit becomes less available. California scrub jays also hunt amphibians and lizards and have been known to prey on other bird species and their eggs.

California scrub jays are essential seed dispersers for many plants and trees. They will often store caches of seeds and nuts on the ground under rocks or plant debris. If they forget where a cache is or about it entirely, the seeds have the opportunity to germinate. California scrub jays have many mutualistic and parasitic relationships with various other organisms. Take the Columbian black-tailed deer (Odocoileus hemionus columbianus), which benefits from California scrub jays consuming ticks and flies from their skin.

You can encourage California scrub jays by planting Oregon white oaks (Quercus garryana), Portland and Vancouver’s powerhouse native oak species. Oak trees are a preferred host plant for California scrub jays for nesting and easy access to acorns. In addition, you can grow plants that attract caterpillars, a favorite food for nestlings, as well as plants that produce fruit. Provide medium-sized rocks or leave small areas of plant debris for California scrub jays to store seeds and nuts. As always, do not spray pesticides on or near your Oregon white oak or caterpillar host plants. Doing so may harm or kill your plants and the insects and California scrub jays that rely on them for food.

For more like this visit portlandhabitatwatch.com