Counting Deer

[Dave Lakes]

I’m looking for some guidance on counting deer. I’ve got permission on a couple of bits of ground, and the landowners just want management, they’re not fussed about reducing numbers. There is only roe present.

When we had extended periods of sub zero temps I went out and counted, as they tend to be out in the open and less flighty.

Am I on the right lines for getting rough numbers identified, or is there anything else I could/should be doing?

 

[SussexSteve]

Get some cameras up or spend plenty of time with binos

 

[Dave Lakes]

Get some cameras up or spend plenty of time with binos

Cheers Steve. With cameras (or binos I suppose), how do I know if I’m seeing all of the deer? Is there any sort of old wives formula like “for every 10 you see, there’s 2 more you don’t”?

 

[Bo Diddley]

Go out at night with the thermal and cover all the ground, do this a couple of times and you will have an excellent idea of numbers.

 

[25 Sharps]

Get some cameras up or spend plenty of time with binos

Or a thermal at night coupled with MV to sex

 

[Leec6.5]

Over the period of a month, whatever you see during the morning, add whatever you see in the evening, add 10% you won’t be far out

 

[Bo Diddley]

But also bear in mind that what you have on your ground one week/month you may not have on the next week/month. Deer are very transient creatures and will move off with pressure/disturbance or because the food source has changed. On half of our patch, I counted 42 roe one night, 19 reds, and a good smattering of Munties, the reds are very transient, here today and gone tomorrow sometimes, especially when the sugarbeet are gone.

 

[Dave Lakes]

But also bear in mind that what you have on your ground one week/month you may not have on the next week/month. Deer are very transient creatures and will move off with pressure/disturbance or because the food source has changed. On half of our patch, I counted 42 roe one night, 19 reds, and a good smattering of Munties, the reds are very transient, here today and gone tomorrow sometimes, especially when the sugarbeet are gone.

I’ve only got roe, don’t they heft to quite tight areas?

 

[bogtrotter]

Roe are notoriously difficult to count there are always more than you think the best time to count is February or March when there is not much for them to feed on much more likely to see them.out in the open just don't expect to get an accurate count,but if you count regularly at this time of year and for several years you will begin to get an an idea of if the population is increasing or decreasing.
Good luck it's not an exact science.

 

[Mungo]

I’ve only got roe, don’t they heft to quite tight areas?

Yes. Extremely tightly hefted.

There have been several long term studies, with genetic data. The general finding is that the average roe deer dies within 200m of where it was born.

That doesn’t make them any easier to count!

 

[Bo Diddley]

I’ve only got roe, don’t they heft to quite tight areas?

Yes.. but I've found with all animals it's about food sources at any given time of year, they will move some distance to feed on what they like best. We have one little block of 400 acres that is separated from our main patch by a couple of lanes with land which we don't cover in between these lanes, this year that 400-acre patch was cropped with mostly maize, which drew in on average 30-40 Roe, food and cover = perfect habitat. That patch has had on average 6 Roe since it was harvested.

 

[TringSaint]

I’m looking for some guidance on counting deer. I’ve got permission on a couple of bits of ground, and the landowners just want management, they’re not fussed about reducing numbers. There is only roe present.

When we had extended periods of sub zero temps I went out and counted, as they tend to be out in the open and less flighty.

Am I on the right lines for getting rough numbers identified, or is there anything else I could/should be doing?

Trick is to not disturb what you see.
Observe from distance and move across the ground in a way that lets you be confident that the deer you just counted aren’t being recounted because you displaced them.

A few quiet mornings / evenings with the binos is a nice way to do it. You will also notice their movements and general demeanour more when you don’t have a rifle in your hand!!

 

[White Hart]

You may find some useful information here to help -

Record and Survey best practice guides | The Deer Initiative

www.thedeerinitiative.co.uk

WH

 

[Ratel]

I always found counting to depend on the topography. Relatively easy to count on land with scattered pieces of smallish woodland but hard where large areas. I worked on a place where over the years I managed to get counts in large and small woods. In the large blocks Roe tended to be hefted to certain areas and each Spring bucks and does could be easily counted from high seats. Fortunately most of the small outlying spinneys lost their deer in the winter months and they all tended to go to one very warm sheltered wood, which made counting easy. It is not an exact science but a lot of time, over a few years to me is the only way to get anywhere near a count.

 

[caorach]

From what I've seen deer counting, no matter who does it, seems to be wildly inaccurate. I wonder if simply measuring the impact of the deer isn't a better method as if you come up with some reasonable metric then you may be able to establish if the deer are having a negative impact upon the area where they live? In the end that is all that matters, the exact number of deer doesn't seem so important compared to the actual impact they are having and I guess you could consider the landowner's wishes as part of the impact?

I know of one high fenced area that held some "pet" red deer but was to be planted for forestry so they wanted to shoot all the deer but first they wanted to know how many would need shot. I don't know how many were released into the enclosure when it was built. They brought in a local university who counted and measured and studied and declared how many deer there were in the little enclosure and last I heard from the project they'd shot twice as many as the experts said were present, and were still shooting them. This was in a small fenced area with no deer moving in or out and with only a relatively small number of deer present.

 

[Freeforester]

If it isn’t too windy:

 

[User00040]

Yes. Extremely tightly hefted.

There have been several long term studies, with genetic data. The general finding is that the average roe deer dies within 200m of where it was born.

That doesn’t make them any easier to count!

Those 'rules' don't apply to populations which are shot heavily year-round and have their habitat periodically destroyed (both situations present in commerical forestry).

But the OP does not seem to be in said situation.

 

[Keith Edmunds]

Count all the legs and divide it by four............................................The old ones are the best

 

[VSS]

Count all the legs and divide it by four............................................The old ones are the best

You'd still get the wrong answer if it was fallow. When looking at a herd of fallow there appears to be zero correlation between the number of legs, heads and bodies!

 

[Bo Diddley]

I was offered 4 haunches, 4 forequarters, and 2 saddles of venison the other day for twenty quid.... do you think it was too dear?