5 December 2023

Back in early September I urged us all to start paying attention and Be Careful Out There! Deer in the Road. Deer were restless in the run-up to the rut and had started to move around. From late October through November they mindlessly crossed in front of traffic, but now in early December the bulk of the rut is over and soon (if not already) there are fewer deer in the road. We can almost relax our vigilance because …

Chasing each other: During the rut — October and November — bucks roam in search of mates and chase does on the move. Driven by hormones, all of them ignore vehicles in the heat of sexual pursuit.

After the rut deer calm down and return to their home range where they stay December to September. Home ranges in Pennsylvania’s forests are approximately 800 acres (a 1.2 mile radius) and in urban areas just 100-300 acres. Even if the range includes road crossing(s) deer are not chasing each other and they know about cars. Many now watch and wait for traffic. Females that pay attention to vehicles live to reproduce and teach their fawns to watch and wait (when it’s not the rut).

Never run from hunters: Some people say that deer run into traffic to get away from hunters but studies have shown that the animals use a completely different strategy. They never run to evade hunters. Instead they stay put and hide.

Since 2013 Penn State’s Deer-Forest Study has tagged and tracked more than 1,200 white-tailed deer around 100 square miles of Pennsylvania forest. In the process they’ve learned that successful deer, the ones that survive hunting seasons, actually know when hunting is about to start and search for a good hiding place in advance. Then each day before dawn (hunters cannot hunt until after dawn) deer go to their hiding places and wait quietly until the afternoon when the hunters have left the woods.

One tracked doe’s hiding spot was incredibly hard for people to reach and impossible to sneak up on. Read about a family’s visit to Hillside Doe’s Hiding Spot.

Watch Hillside Doe’s movements during hunting season. She didn’t have to cross roads to get there.

24 November 2023

Deer hunting seasons are changing this weekend in Pennsylvania. Archery season will pause tomorrow (25 Nov) until the day after Christmas (26 Dec) because Deer Rifle Season begins on Saturday 25 November and runs through 9 December including THIS SUNDAY 26 November.

CORRECTION! (Thanks to Noelle’s comment) The archery hunt in Frick and Riverview Parks does take a pause in December but those dates match Allegheny County’s Archery season, not the statewide dates listed above. Engage Pittsburgh lists the 2023 archery dates in the City of Pittsburgh as: Saturday, September 30 – Saturday, December 9* and Tuesday, December 26 – Saturday, January 27 (2024)* *Excluding Sundays.

Meanwhile, the City’s deer are wise to what’s going on and have left Frick Park to browse their way through the neighborhoods. The pair pictured above visited a Squirrel Hill polling place on Election Day.

Deer hunting will be particularly intense in the countryside this weekend so wear orange if you go for a walk in the woods!

The PA Game Commission’s 2023-2024 Hunting and Trapping Pocket Guide lists the seasons in a nutshell. I’ve highlighted the remaining deer hunting days. Pink+arrow indicates Archery days in the City of Pittsburgh. We are in WMU 2B.

Deer Hunting Dates in PA, 25 November 2023 – 27 January 2024

WMUs for the extended hunts are circled below.

(credits are in the captions)

8 October 2023

Fall is deer crash season in Pennsylvania. November, October and December, in that order, are the highest months for deer collisions because the animals are on the move in the breeding season.

During the rut, bucks travel an average of 3-6 miles per day searching for and chasing does in heat. Females split from their fawns when they find a mate and the youngsters wander. All age groups are crossing roads more frequently and all of them are distracted.

In Pennsylvania it’s especially important to stay alert because our high deer population increases the odds of a collision. Last month State Farm Insurance reported:

 State Farm estimates over 1.8 million auto insurance claims were filed across the industry from July 1, 2022 to June 30, 2023 involving animal collisions. Pennsylvania had the highest number of claims out of all the states, with an estimated 153,397 claims for the same time period.

Nationwide the odds of U.S. drivers hitting an animal are 1 in 127 this year. Drivers in West Virginia held on to the number one spot with the least favorable odds at 1 in 38. Montana (1 in 53), Pennsylvania (1 in 59), Michigan (1 in 60), Wisconsin (1 in 60) round out the top five most likely states to hit an animal while on the road.

— State Farm: Likelihood of Hitting an Animal While Driving, 12 Sept 2023

PennDOT’s heat map of deer-vehicle collisions on state roads shows particularly high deer collisions in several areas including Allegheny County.

In fact PennDOT statistics show that for 2018-2022 Allegheny County leads all Pennsylvania counties in deer-vehicle collisions. Your chance of hitting a deer in Pittsburgh is particularly high.

Statewide the odds of hitting a deer — or a deer hitting you! — are 1 in 59 and probably higher in Pittsburgh. This means that each one of us knows someone who will hit a deer in the year ahead. It might be us.

Stay alert behind the wheel, especially at dawn and dusk. Watch out!

Read more about deer-vehicle collisions at WESA: Deer Danger: Pennsylvania is No. 1 in the U.S. for car crashes with animals.

(credits are in the captions; click on the links to see the originals)

p.s. An interesting statistic from Cornell University’s Community Deer Advisor website:

Hunter harvest is the primary cause of white-tailed deer mortality in rural landscapes, while deer in suburban landscapes are more likely to die in deer-vehicle collisions. [p.10]

Managing a deer herd via vehicle collisions is both inhumane and costly for community residents. [p.30]

— Cornell University: Integrated Approach for Managing White-tailed Deer in Suburban Environments

30 September 2023

Stylish blaze orange over purple, accented by a dayglo yellow hat!

Birders and hikers are out in the woods at all times of year. You don’t have to look as eccentric as I do but it’s important to dress for success during deer and wild turkey seasons in Pennsylvania.

Allegheny County has so many deer that bow hunting (Deer Archery Season) has been allowed in municipalities and County Parks for many years. This fall is the first time it will occur in the Frick and Riverview Parks. Some city dwellers are nervous, especially those who don’t spend time in the woods or in North or South Parks where hunting is allowed.

Bow season — officially called DEER, ARCHERY (Antlered and Antlerless) Season — runs Statewide in Pennsylvania Mondays to Saturdays, Sept 30 – Nov 17 (Nov 24 in Allegheny County) and Dec 26 – Jan 15 (Jan 27 in Allegheny County).

Here is my message to park users. I am not worried because …

For many years I’ve hiked in the woods alone even during hunting season including at Moraine State Park. I wear orange so I can be seen. You should too (blaze orange shown above). I understand being worried because this is a new experience for most park users. Thirty years ago I was worried because it was new to me. Experience put my fears to rest. I have *never* encountered a problem in 30 years of hiking during hunting season nor have any of my birding friends who are out in the woods as well. It is rare to see a hunter except in the parking lot. They are never hunting in the parking lot.

So dress for hunting season. And don’t expect to see a hunter. The hunters are in tree stands deep in the woods where the deer are, not where people are. (Don’t miss my update below.)

I encourage you to read all about bow hunting in Frick and Riverview at WESA-FM: Bowhunting season in two city parks will begin September 30 and at the City of Pittsburgh’s Deer FAQ webpages: Pittsburgh Deer Management Pilot Program

If you want to know about the City of Pittsburgh’s deer overpopulation read my Deer Category here. (Some of the articles are on more general topics with photos of deer in Frick and Schenley.)

UPDATE, noon on 30 Sept: I went birding in Frick Park this morning for 2.5 hours and saw zero hunters and among all the other visitors only one person wore blaze orange. When the day warmed up I took off my coat and gave up on my orange running vest. This is what I wore. (OK, so I broke my own rule but really, there were lots and lots of people and no hunters in sight.)

Note: PA Game seasons have many special dates, times and arms. Click here to download a pocket guide that lists all the nuances for 2023-2024.

p.s. I have corrected the text to reflect this change: Hunters wear orange during firearms season but bow hunters wear camouflage because they wait in tree stands for the deer to walk beneath them.

(photos by Linda Roth and Kate St. John)

7 September 2023

A year ago I learned that deer are really easy to find and photograph in Schenley Park in August but suddenly much harder to find in September. As their breeding season, called the rut, approaches its November peak deer become secretive in the woods(*). However, the rut prompts them to move around a lot so they sprint across the road. Their behavior in past six days has borne that out already.

On a walk in Schenley Park on 1 September I saw four bucks resting in their usual spot near the Upper Trail. One buck had just shed velvet from his 9-point antlers which were bloody from the missing velvet. With him were one 8-point and two 4-point bucks. Shedding velvet is the first obvious sign of the rut and the biggest buck was ready.

Two days later, on 3 September, only one 4-point buck remained in that resting place. The others were somewhere secret and moving around. That night I heard two reports of deer collisions in the city. These don’t end up in the deer-killed-by-cars statistics if the deer are only stunned:

• Mary at 8:15pm posted a comment on my blog: “Off-topic but I wanted to let you know that a deer and car collided this evening around 730 pm on Schenley Drive near the library. Deer sat on the side of the road for a while. Then stood up as people gathered around.”
• Dylan @DylPar252 tweeted from Pittsburgh on 3 Sep at 9:49pm: “I literally just watched one get hit by a car in front of my house on a busy inner city street. The deer do indeed need managed (she kept on moving btw)”

In the city, deer have to cross roads to get anywhere especially in Schenley Park. The deer pictured below are on a virtual traffic island — Flagstaff Hill — surrounded by cars. When I took this picture in April they weren’t charged up with breeding hormones so they ambled or trotted across the road instead of sprinting.

But now we can expect a lot more accidents in the months ahead. Collisions don’t end well for deer.

And they don’t end well for cars.

So be careful out there! Watch out for deer in the road.

Learn more about cars and deer in this vintage article.

p.s. Yesterday City Council approved two bills that will begin deer management in the City of Pittsburgh. When the bills were introduced last week the public made comments on hunt vs no-hunt yet no matter where someone stood on that spectrum everyone agreed there are too many deer in Pittsburgh.

The first step in City Deer Management will be a pilot program bow hunt in Frick and Riverview this fall. It will not solve the deer overpopulation problem but is the first step in deer management and is required by the PA Game Commission.

Here are three of the many news articles about City Deer Management in Pittsburgh. Please don’t ask me how the hunt will be conducted. I don’t know that answer.

• Before the vote, WESA explains the proposal, 30 Aug: https://www.wesa.fm/politics-government/2023-08-30/pittsburgh-deer-bowhunting-program-overpopulation
• After the approval, Trib-Live describes: https://triblive.com/local/pittsburgh-approves-limited-deer-hunting-program-in-city-parks/
• CBS Pittsburgh, KDKA news: https://youtu.be/gnWzHj1Gpns?si=sUAL85_cfhQx-iEm

(credits are in the captions)

p.s. Deer are secretive in autumn in Schenley Park except … There’s a place where someone puts out food. Six were feeding there on Sunday 4 Sept.