Deer Migration Question
 

Last fall, in our area, there was hardly a deer to be found. Driving at night, I hardly saw a deer all fall long, driving past miles and miles of fields 2 nights a week, every week. Now this spring, after the hardest winter on record, we have more deer than I have seen in years!?? Counted 6 on my cam last week in one small spot one morning. I don't think I counted much more than 6 all last summer and fall!

So did the deer migrate here? Seems so. If so, why? Given this harsh winter, it was even much colder just south of us away from Lake Superior. Perhaps they came up from that area? Or perhaps the record numbers of ticks we had last year caused them to migrate out and now they have returned to an abundance of browse? I am thinking deer will migrate very long distances, perhaps 30 miles or more.

What do you think?

Woods deer seem to gravitate to roads and open fields during the early spring. Makes it seem like they're everywhere. They aren't, they're just are near roads and open fields. They are hungry and these places seem to green up first. You'll see them at all times of the day, eating. As food sources become available, they'll disperse to their normal home areas. The fact that you're seeing some deer means that those made through the winter, but they'll spread out. If you are seeing fawns, that's good. They are usually the first to go in a bad winter.

No.
Wisconsin whitetails don't migrate. They shift around between preferred food sources, bedding areas, etc.
Mule deer migrate. High mountains in summer, low elevations in winter. Many miles between summer and winter range.

Michigan UP deer will migrate 50 to 75 miles to their winter yarding areas. I have never seen any studies on how they know when to go.

:D Al

I know that deer come out to the fields when the snow first leaves, but as I said, I was seeing virtually no (as in zero) deer ALL last fall at any time, day or night. Also, virtually NO deer in woods, even for guys I talked to that were baiting during hunting season. Now, all of sudden we have all these deer?

Now there were some deer around a year ago too, but not like this. Maybe see one or two. One thing I did last winter was cut a bunch of popples and left the tops for browse - so that might explain the deer in my 40. But not all the others that I see all over the place. Another thing that happened a year ago was the freak blizzard in late April - perhaps this pushed a lot of deer out. We had close to 2 ft of snow on April 19th.

Over in Clark County where I hunt, the deer virtually disappeared from large areas 2 summers ago during a period of extreme drought. There were no deer to be found in these areas. Conversely, they were "everywhere" in areas where there was open water, along rivers and streams that didn't dry up. After the rains came back, they moved back into their former home range. They will relocate in response to extreme conditions.

I don't think they migrate per se, but they do yard up in the winter. So you either see a bunch or none, and most likely none, as they are not spread out across the country side. As I understand it, yarding is more pronounced in a harsh winter, and this certainly was a harsh winter. So I would suppose the deer were somewhere in the area, lying low and conserving energy, and when the winter broke, they spread out again.