West Virginia White-tailed Deer Project
Background
White-tailed deer are the most hunted game species in West Virginia - with over 7 million reported harvests since 1945. Approximately 230,000 hunters are in the woods in pursuit of these animals each year.
In 2020, the WVDNR began a project to study population dynamics of white-tailed deer within the state.
This research project will be used to inform deer management decisions for the state of West Virginia. The results will allow us to gain a better understanding of the factors that influence deer survival, space use, resource selection, and movement during each season of the year.
In the Hampshire County study area, the results from this project will also help us inform future Chronic Wasting Disease (CWD) management and the impact of the disease on whitetail deer in our CWD containment area.
Study Objectives
- Estimate survival probability and cause-specific mortality of yearling and adult bucks and does
- Determine home range and resource selection of yearling and adult bucks and does
- Develop method for estimating deer density using game cameras
- Develop an integrated population model
Study Locations
West Virginia is the third most forested state (79%) in the United States - making most of the state prime deer habitat.
The study locations contain approximately 400 square miles each and are located in Mason, Jackson, Barbour, Upshur, and Hampshire Counties.
These study areas cover 65% of Hampshire County, 62% of Barbour & Upshur Counties, and 45% of Mason & Jackson Counties.
All research is being conducted on private lands with permission from private landowners who owned at least one continuous parcel of land greater than or equal to 50 acres within the study area.
A total of 673 landowners responded to the survey sent out by the WVDNR with 72% of the respondents allowing WVDNR to trap deer on their property.
Study Area Statistics
The Eastern Study Area is mostly forested (74%) with around 19% of the area classified as open / agriculture. It has the highest percentage of water / wetlands across the three areas (0.7%).
The Central Study Area is also mostly forested, with 70% of the area being covered in trees. The Central and West Study Areas have the same percentage of open / agriculture land (21%). Water and wetlands still make up for less than 1% of the land cover (0.5%).
As for the Western Study Area, 72% of the area is forested and 21% is open / agriculture. Only 0.4% of the study area is classified as water / wetlands - the lowest percentage of all three areas.
In all three study areas, the "other" category is largely made up of developed areas and roads.
Timeline
2021
Initial capture, collaring, and monitoring of 97 deer.
2022
Collared 147 more deer. Continued monitoring efforts.
November 21-22, 2022
Biological Game Check Stations were held throughout Barbour, Upshur, Jackson, and Mason Counties to capture more demographics on the deer population throughout the study areas.
2023
Collared 107 more deer. Continued monitoring efforts.
July - December 2023
Conduct final analysis.
November 20-21, 2023
Biological Game Check Stations were held throughout Barbour, Upshur, Jackson, and Mason Counties to capture more demographics on the deer population throughout the study areas.
2024
The GPS collars have a lifespan of 3 years per deployment. Any remaining collars from the 2021 capture season will fall off sometime in 2024.
2025
Any remaining collars from the 2022 capture season will fall off sometime in 2025.
2026
Any remaining collars from the 2023 capture season will fall off sometime in 2026.
Capture
In order to fit the deer with radio collars, they are first captured using one of two different methods.
Clover Traps
Clover traps, like the one shown here, have been the most common method of capturing deer for the study
Rocket nets
Though not as commonly used, rocket traps have also been used to trap the deer to be collared
After Capture
Once the deer has been caught, it is fitted with a GPS collar and ear tagged (photos below). DNA, blood, body measurements, and vitals are also taken from the animal.
GPS Collar
Ear tag
Monitoring
The GPS collars work on a fix rate of a set number of pings per day. After a collar records 5 pings, the collar remotely updates those to the web, where biologists can see where the deer are.
- Buck collars are programmed to ping twice per day from January 1st to September 30th. During October 1st - December 31st, the ping rate is increased to 5 times per day to evaluate breeding resource selection (also referred to as rut).
- Doe collars are programmed to ping twice per day from August 1st through April 30th. During May 1st - July 31st, the ping rate is increased to 5 times per day to evaluate fawning resource selection.
When a deer dies, the collar sends a mortality ping, and DNR biologists are notified by text messages like in the image below.
Once notified of a mortality, biologists have to find the animal using telemetry - pictured here.
Preliminary Results
In 2021, the first 97 deer were captured and fitted with GPS collars. Another 147 deer were captured in 2022 and 140 of the deer were fitted with collars; the remaining 7 were only ear-tagged. In 2023 an additional 107 deer were captured and fitted with GPS collars.
As of September 10, 2024, out of the 350 total, 113 deer are still alive. There have been 183 confirmed mortalities. The collars the deer have been fitted with have a "lifespan" of 3 years. After this 3-year time period, the collars will fall off of the deer. 2024 is the first year for these collars to start dropping, and so far, 25 deer have dropped their collars.
The remaining deer have been classified as "unknown / other," meaning that they are either one of the 7 deer that were only ear-tagged (that aren't confirmed dead) or their collars malfunctioned.
Mortality
Mortalities have resulted from several reasons, most notably hunter harvest. The second most common cause, so far, has been predation.
Movement
When compiling all of the GPS data from the collars, biologists are able to see where the deer spend their time. This doe, collared in 2021, is shown moving in Barbour County throughout May to July. The doe localizes in the western part of the area around late May where she is presumed to be fawning.
This doe was able to be photographed with her 2021 and 2022 fawns (below).
Collared doe with 2021 fawn
Collared doe with 2022 fawn
Home Ranges
One of the objectives of this study is to determine home range and resource selection of the deer. This GIF shows the natural home range selection of the deer. The GIF starts with 17 deer and as time progresses, some of them are removed from the landscape due to mortality or dropped collars.
One of our most interesting collared deer so far has been a buck collared in 2022 in Rock Cave (southern Upshur County). He made the trip from Rock Cave to Lost Creek (southern Harrison County) twice, returning once - crossing both US Route 33 and I-79. A straight distance between the towns is approximately 22.5 miles.
His original trip from Rock Cave to Lost Creek happened in May 2022. He returned to Rock Cave in October 2022. He made a final trip to Lost Creek in November 2022. In May of 2023 he was hit in the northbound lane of I-79 near the Lost Creek exit.
Stay Tuned...
We will keep updating this StoryMap as the project continues, so check back later for more information!
