We’re still talking about deer at NPC. The regular firearm season wraps up on Saturday, December 12, 2015. So, remember, if you’re going out in the woods on Saturday to enjoy the warm weather the weathermen are predicting, don’t forget fluorescent orange so you can be seen!
Deer can see quite a bit. They have a large range in their eyesight. The deer’s eyes are located on the side of their head. This placement gives them more than a 300 degree field of view without turning their heads.
Deer also are also fairly successful with their reproduction. When there are no natural predators and hunting is not permitted deer populations can double in one year. Given time, that number increases in only seven years one pair of deer can produce 35 deer. That’s a lot of deer.
To give you some perspective, estimates of deer population density before European settlement vary widely, but the best assessment is that there were 10-12 deer per square mile.
Wildlife biologists for various agencies and researchers at many universities are studying the populations of deer throughout Pennsylvania, the impacts deer have on forests and other habitat, and how deer are handling the changes to their habitat are various types of development and land use conversion take place.