by Melissa Kay Bishop

The lush green that recently blanketed the world has started to change. Everything is taking on a yellowish-green hue, enhanced by an early sunset. But the world is not dormant yet, in fact this time of year can be the busiest for wildlife trying to fatten up and scramble for the last minute winter preparations. 

The fruits of fall are falling before the leaves do. Acorns, chestnuts, walnuts, and more are calling to the squirrels, but others look forward to the nut season too, mainly the whitetail deer.

This is my favorite time of year to watch the deer. They have shed their summer red coat in exchange for a winter brown that will help conceal them in the months when the landscape is mostly neutral tones. The bucks' racks, which began to emerge in early spring, are now fully grown and covered in velvet which they will soon shed by rubbing against trees. This will serve two purposes for the buck; one is to mark their territory and two, is to remove the kid gloves from their main weapon that they will put to use during the upcoming rut season.

Rutting season is basically the time they mate and when males will challenge each other to impress or to win the rights to a doe. The further south the deer are, the longer the rutting season is. It can extend from the end of September to the end of January in the most southern locations. The wildlife photographer and writer, Charles J. Alsheimer coined the phrase "rutting moon," which is the second full moon after the autumnal equinox that he has observed seems to kick off the rutting season.

This time of year the deer are busy foraging to fatten up for the winter and their hormones are starting to get a little intense. One year, my neighbor told me she saw a six point buck who took issue with one of my Halloween decorations dangling from a tree. He charged it and with his rack, showed that little plastic ghost who was boss.

Another reason the season is keeping deer on their toes is that this is when they

become fair game. Hunting season is beginning. Most deer live an average of two years in the wild. Their lives, which can naturally stretch on for twenty years, are often cut short by a gun or bow. Since there is no hunting allowed within the city limits, I imagine some of the deer that I see could be quite old. Once a deer leaves its mother and establishes its own territory, it will stay within one square mile of the claimed range. City deer are either very smart or very lucky to have claimed the wooded neighborhoods as their territory, safe from becoming a stuffed decoration on someone's wall.

People hold various opinions about the ethics of

hunting. Some people feel that it is a cruel and primitive form of recreation. Some people feel it is more humane to take an animal down in the wild for food rather than have it be raised in unnatural factory conditions and if you have a nice rack to mount after the feast, all the better. Personally, in the past I have agreed with the latter opinion. I felt that there needed to be a form of population control for this prolific animal that, at this time in its natural history, no longer has many predators such as wolves. I felt it was up to us. That is until it was pointed out to me that when deer were naturally preyed upon, it was the young, the old, the sick, or the weak that the predator took down. Today, hunters seek the biggest, strongest, most beautiful buck with the biggest rack. In light of this, I have to ask what we are doing to the gene pool of the species. We are not weeding out the sick and the weak, but the strongest and healthiest.

This season, after the "rutting moon," you may hear what you think is the grunting or growling of a bear. But it is more likely that what you hear is the rut cry of a buck. If you do hear this, stand back, for this hormonal animal might believe you are there to thin out his gene pool and take issue with you as well.


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