We all know that deer have a really good sense of smell. Actually everthing in thewhitetail's worldrevolves around scent.

We know they deposit scent when they rub trees, pee in scrapes and use licking branches.

Deer have several scent glands on their body, in the nose, on the forehead, by the eyes and on their legs. they have scent glands between their hoove too.

These glands are called interdigital glands. They deposit scent when a deer walks. they also deposit "EXTRA" scent when a deer stomps it's feet or runs.

So when a deer is stomping it's feet it releases an "EXTRA" amount of this scent. This scent means danger. It alerts other deer that something is wrong here. This "EXTRA" scent will linger in the area and even alert other deer to the danger, when they pass by the area much later.

Yes, the snorting is the deer trying to clear it's nose to draw in more scent molecules to smell "that out of place object" it knows is there. It is trying to smell you, not scare you as many believe.

I saw a hunting video made back in the mid 1980's about caribou hunting. They demonstrated how this interdigital gland thing works.

When the hunters would spook a caribou and make it run, the next group of caribou that came by that spot would just start running and look around all nervous and stuff. The next group would do the same, and over and over.

They explained what was happening and howit worked. It wasa Bob Mcquire video. He had videos with Dan Fitzgerald and Bob Folkrod together when they were getting just getting started.