Two forms of black-tailed deer or blacktail deer that occupy coastal woodlands in the

Pacific Northwest The Pacific Northwest (sometimes Cascadia, or simply abbreviated as PNW) is a geographic region in western North America bounded by its coastal waters of the Pacific Ocean to the west and, loosely, by the Rocky Mountains to the east. Thou ...

of North America are

subspecies In biological classification, subspecies is a rank below species, used for populations that live in different areas and vary in size, shape, or other physical characteristics ( morphology), but that can successfully interbreed. Not all specie ...

of the

mule deer The mule deer (''Odocoileus hemionus'') is a deer indigenous to western North America; it is named for its ears, which are large like those of the mule. Two subspecies of mule deer are grouped into the black-tailed deer. Unlike the related whi ...

(''Odocoileus hemionus''). They have sometimes been treated as a species, but virtually all recent authorities maintain they are subspecies.Novak, R. M. (1999). ''Walker's Mammals of the World.'' 6th edition. Heffelfinger, J. (version 2 March 2011).
Tails with a dark side: The truth about whitetail – mule deer hybrids.
''Reid, F. A. (2006). ''Mammals of North America.'' 4th edition. Geist, V. (1998). ''Deer of the world: their evolution, behaviour, and ecology.'' Feldhamer, G. A., B. C. Thompson, and J. A. Chapman, editors (2003).
Wild mammals of North America: biology, management, and conservation
'' 2nd edition. The Columbian black-tailed deer (''Odocoileus hemionus columbianus'') is found in western North America, from

Northern California Northern California (colloquially known as NorCal) is a geographic and cultural region that generally comprises the northern portion of the U.S. state of California. Spanning the state's northernmost 48 counties, its main population centers incl ...

into the Pacific Northwest of the United States and coastal

British Columbia British Columbia (commonly abbreviated as BC) is the westernmost province of Canada, situated between the Pacific Ocean and the Rocky Mountains. It has a diverse geography, with rugged landscapes that include rocky coastlines, sandy beaches, for ...

in Canada.B.C. Ministry of Env., Lands & Parks. (Undated) Mule and black-tailed deer in British Columbia. The Sitka deer (''O. h. sitkensis'') is found coastally in British Columbia,

southeast Alaska Southeast Alaska, colloquially referred to as the Alaska(n) Panhandle, is the southeastern portion of the U.S. state of Alaska, bordered to the east and north by the northern half of the Canadian province of British Columbia (and a small part ...

, and southcentral Alaska (as far as Kodiak Island).B.C. Ministry of Forests. 1996–1998
Coastal Black-Tailed Deer Study
linking to five reports.MacDonald, S. and Cook, J. (2007
Mammals and Amphibians of Southeast Alaska

Range

The black-tailed deer lives along the Pacific coast from western California up through Alaska. East of the Cascade and Sierra Nevada Ranges in Oregon and California, black-tailed deer are replaced by mule deer which have a different tail pattern. The black-tailed deer is currently common in California, western Oregon, Washington, in coastal and interior British Columbia, and north into the Alaskan panhandle. It is a popular game animal.

Taxonomy

All recent authorities maintain it as a subspecies of the

(''O. hemionus''). Strictly speaking, the black-tailed deer group consists of two subspecies, as it also includes ''O. h. sitkensis'' (the Sitka deer). Despite this, the

mtDNA Mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA or mDNA) is the DNA located in mitochondria, cellular organelles within eukaryotic cells that convert chemical energy from food into a form that cells can use, such as adenosine triphosphate (ATP). Mitochondrial DNA ...

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 Introgression, also known as introgressive hybridization, in genetics is the transfer of genetic material from one species into the gene pool of another by the repeated backcrossing of an interspecific hybrid with one of its parent species. Intr ...

, although hybrids between the mule deer and white-tailed deer are rare in the wild (apparently more common locally in

West Texas West Texas is a loosely defined region in the U.S. state of Texas, generally encompassing the arid and semiarid lands west of a line drawn between the cities of Wichita Falls, Abilene, and Del Rio. No consensus exists on the boundary betw ...

), and the hybrid

survival rate Survival rate is a part of survival analysis. It is the proportion of people in a study or treatment group still alive at a given period of time after diagnosis. It is a method of describing prognosis in certain disease conditions, and can be use ...

is low even in captivity.

Ecology

These two subspecies thrive on the edge of the forest, as the dark forest lacks the

underbrush In forestry and ecology, understory (American English), or understorey (Commonwealth English), also known as underbrush or undergrowth, includes plant life growing beneath the forest canopy without penetrating it to any great extent, but abov ...

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 ''Toxicodendron diversilobum'' (syn. ''Rhus diversiloba''), commonly named Pacific poison oak or western poison oak, is a woody vine or shrub in the sumac family, Anacardiaceae. It is widely distributed in western North America, inhabiting coni ...

, despite its irritant content. This deer often is most active at dawn and dusk, and is frequently involved in collisions with automobiles.

Diet and reproduction

Deer are browsers. 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. The mating or 'rutting' season occurs during November and early December. Bucks can be observed running back and forth across the roads in the pursuit of does. After the rut, the bucks tend to hide and rest, often nursing wounds. They suffer broken antlers, and have lost weight. They drop their antlers between January and March. Antlers on the forest floor provide a source of calcium and other nutrients to other forest inhabitants. Bucks regrow their antlers beginning in April through to August. The gestation period for does is 6–7 months, with fawns being born in late May and into June. Twins are the rule, although young does often have only single fawns. Triplets can also occur. Fawns weigh and have no scent for the first week or so. This enables the mother to leave the fawn hidden while she goes off to browse and replenish her body after giving birth. She must also eat enough to produce enough milk to feed her fawns. Although does are excellent mothers, fawn mortality rate is 45 to 70%. Does are very protective of their young and humans are viewed as predators. Deer communicate with the aid of scent and pheromones from several glands located on the lower legs. The metatarsal (outside of lower leg) produces an alarm scent, the tarsal (inside of hock) serves for mutual recognition and the interdigital (between the toes) leave a scent trail when deer travel. Deer have excellent sight and smell. Their large ears can move independently of each other and pick up any unusual sounds that may signal danger. At dawn, dusk, and moonlit nights, deer are seen browsing on the roadside. Wooded areas with forests on both sides of the road and open, grassy areas, i.e. golf courses, attract deer. Caution when driving is prudent because often as one deer crosses, another one or two follow.

Controversy over habitat management

In Southeast Alaska, the Sitka deer is the primary prey of the rare

Alexander Archipelago wolf The Alexander Archipelago wolf (''Canis lupus ligoni''), also known as the Islands wolf,
Sitnews.us (2008-07-11). R ...

(''Canis lupus ligoni''), which is endemic to the region.Person, D.K. (Univ. Alaska); Kirchhoff, M. (ADF&G); van Ballenberghe, V. (USFS-FSL); Iverson, G.C. (USFS); Grossman, E. (USF&WS). 1996
"The Alexander Archipelago Wolf: A Conservation Assessment,"
Gen. Tech. Rep. PNW-GTR-384. Portland, OR: U.S. Department of Agriculture, Forest Service, Pacific Northwest Research Station. In the mid-1990s, the

United States Fish and Wildlife Service The United States Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS or FWS) is an agency within the United States Department of the Interior dedicated to the management of fish, wildlife, and natural habitats. The mission of the agency is "working with othe ...

evaluated a petition to list this wolf subspecies as threatened, and decided a listing was not warranted in August 1997, largely on the basis of provisions the Forest Service had included to protect the viability of the wolf subspecies in its Forest Plan for the

Tongass National Forest The Tongass National Forest () in Southeast Alaska is the largest U.S. National Forest at . Most of its area is temperate rain forest and is remote enough to be home to many species of endangered and rare flora and fauna. The Tongass, which is ...

, adopted three months earlier.USF&WS. 1997 (August 28) 12-month finding, re: Petition to List the Alexander Archipelago Wolf under Provisions of the Endangered Species Act. The Tongass NF is important in wolf conservation because it includes about 80% of the region's land area. The protections for the wolf included a standard and guideline intended to retain, in the face of logging losses, enough habitat

carrying capacity The carrying capacity of an environment is the maximum population size of a biological species that can be sustained by that specific environment, given the food, habitat, water, and other resources available. The carrying capacity is defined as ...

for deer in winter to assure the viability of the Alexander Archipelago wolf and an adequate supply of deer for hunters. The needed carrying capacity was originally specified as 13 deer per square mile, but was corrected in 2000 to 18. Use of a deer model is specified for determining carrying capacity, and is the only tool available for the purpose.1997 TLMP Wolf standard and guideline: reproduced at Wildlife Habitat Planning: WILD112, XI.A.3 i

The 13 deer per square mile carrying capacity was an error, corrected in 1998 to 17, and in 2002 to 18 deer per square mile. However, the Forest Service's implementation of the deer provision in the Tongass wolf standard and guideline has been controversial for many years, and led to a lawsuit by Greenpeace and Cascadia Wildlands in 2008, over four logging projects. The data set the Forest Service was using in the deer model was known through the agency's own study (done in 2000) to generally overestimate the carrying capacity for deer and underestimate the impacts of logging. The study showed the data set (called Vol-Strata) is not correlated to habitat quality.Caouette, J.; Kramer, M.; Nowacki, G. 2000
Deconstructing the Tongass Timber Paradigm
USDA Forest Service. Also, a conversion factor, known as the "deer multiplier" (used in calculating carrying capacity) was incorrectly applied, causing — by itself – a 30% overestimation of carrying capacity and corresponding underestimation of impacts.
Sitnews.us (2008-07-11). Retrieved on 2012-06-10. The combined effect of the two errors is variable because Vol-Strata is not correlated to habitat quality. Regarding the Traitors Cove Timber Sales project, in 2011 the plaintiffs noted in oral arguments before the

9th Circuit Court of Appeals The United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit (in case citations, 9th Cir.) is the U.S. federal court of appeals that has appellate jurisdiction over the U.S. district courts in the following federal judicial districts: * District ...

that the difference is between a claimed 21 deer per square mile carrying capacity in the project EIS, and 9.5 deer per square mile (about half of the Tongass Forest Plan's requirement) according to unpublished corrections the agency made in 2008. The 9th Circuit panel ruled unanimously on August 2, 2011, in favor of the plaintiffs, remanding the four timber sale decisions to the Forest Service and giving guidance for what is necessary during reanalysis of impacts to deer.Memorandum. Issued unanimously by the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals panel of Judges Alarcon, Graber and Bybee
August 2, 2011. The ruling says in part:

We do not think that USFS has adequately explained its decision to approve the four logging projects in the Tongass. ... USFS has failed to explain how it ended up with a table that identifies 100 deer per square mile as a maximum carrying capacity, but allows 130 deer per square mile as a potential carrying capacity. 'The agency is obligated to articulate a rational connection between the facts found and the choices made,' which the agency has not done here. Pac. Coast Fed'n of Fisherman's Ass'ns v. U.S. Bureau of Reclamation, 426 F.3d 1082, 1091 (9th Cir. 2005)...

We have similar questions about USFS's use of VolStrata data, which identifies total timber volume and not forest structure, to approve the projects, where forest structure—and not total timber volume—is relevant to the habitability of a piece of land. USFS itself has recognized the limitations in the VolStrata data. ... Because we must remand to the agency to re-examine its Deer Model, we need not decide whether the use of the VolStrata data was arbitrary and capricious. We anticipate that, in reviewing the proposed projects, USFS will use the best available data ...

In a statement to the press, a spokesman for the plaintiffs said the errors in this lawsuit apply to every significant Tongass timber sale decision between 1996 and 2008, before the Forest Service corrected errors in the deer model when the agency issued its revised Tongass Forest Plan in 2008. But he said despite those corrections, the agency still fails to address cumulative impacts to deer, especially on Prince of Wales Island, as is being challenged in the Logjam timber sale lawsuit, by ignoring substantial logging on nonfederal lands. In September 2013, under the same litigation, the U.S. District Court in Anchorage made a second remand to the Forest Service because the agency's further work under the first remand had not resolved the modeling issues. Activity on the four timber sales involved in the litigation has been suspended since 2008.KFSK (2013)
Court sends four timber sale plans back for reworking
by Joe Viechnicki. 2 Oct. 2014.

References

External links

Black-tailed Deer
at BritishColumbia.com {{Taxonbar, from=Q3880944 Mammals described in 1829 Black-tailed Mammals of North America Fauna of the California chaparral and woodlands Fauna of the Western United States Mammals of Canada Subspecies Endemic fauna of the Pacific Northwest