Ep. 546: The Story of Deer Survival - Whitetail Anatomy Lessons with Justin Brown

Mark sent me a text last week saying that he was attending a claymation course so he can finally make a stop motion film about his friendship with Spencer. I don't know, man, I gotta hand it to Kenyan anyway, He's got a lot of interesting hobbies. Moving on, today, I'm speaking with Dr Justin Brown, who currently works at Penn State, where a good percentage of the most interesting

deer research comes from. Justin has studied a crazy amount of viruses and pathogens and different game animals and is a huge wealth of knowledge on the anatomy of our favorite game animal. Throughout this episode, we get into a wide variety of topics, but we mostly stick to the ways in which white tails have adapted and evolved to be able to thrive in so many different environments while

avoiding predation. Listen, I promise you, if you see this episode all the way through to the end, you're gonna learn a thing or two about white tails. Justin Brown, I'm stoked to have you on, man, thank you for having me. So you Uh, I guess, I guess before

we get into this. Uh, you and I have had a couple of conversations, and I've had the chance to look through some of your research, and I don't think there's anyone out there who studied, uh, you know, random viruses in birds and in big game animals and pathogens. You've kind of you've kind of covered a wide array of that stuff. I want to talk to you about that, but first, can you just give the listeners a little bit of your background and how you got into this

field that you're in. Absolutely absolutely well. So, I'm a veterinarian by training. Uh and uh, you know, as I got into vet school and and started to figure out what I wanted to do with my veterinary degree, I always had an interest in wildlife and in population health, and so when it came time for my senior year and you're going out on various externships trying to figure

out what you're gonna do with your veterinary degree. I went to a few externships out west UM and worked wildife veterinarians and some of the western states, and UH fell in love with the career and and so after VET school, I went on and completed a PhD um in pathology, which is sort of the study of diseases and and and I specifically looked at diseases of wildlife. UH. And that include diseases that may be causing having an impact on wildlife, or some that may be harbored by

wildlife but having impacts on humans or domestic animals. So UM sort of looking at at how the health of wildlife is linked to domestic animals and humans and UM. So after that, I I've had a couple of different positions. I've I've worked down at University of George's Vet School.

They have a large wildlife health and disease unit down there. UM. I was the state wildlife veterinarian for Pennsylvania for several years and currently I'm at penn State in their department of veteranan biomedical sciences, and you didn't want to go even though you went in uh to you know, study veterinarian and sciences. You did you didn't want to go the typical route people would think when you when you've had that way, you didn't you didn't want to go

treat cats and dogs. Huh. No, it's probably better off for the cats and dogs that I didn't. My interests were elsewhere. My wife's actually a companion animal veterinarian, and I think I went into VET school and knowing that maybe I wasn't going to go the traditional traditional route. I always enjoyed population health a little bit more than an individual animal health. Um. And I've always sort of had been a little bit more like a biologist that

went to VET school rather than in a pure veterinarian. So, um, you know, I've always uh sort of stayed in the realm of wildlife health and population health. Um. This this is a total side tangent here, But is your wife dealing dealing with companion animals the way she is? Is she totally burned out on telling people how to keep their dogs and cats healthy And I'm not listening. She's

probably not happy with how often I volunteer her you know. Um, yeah, yeah, I think it's a it's a real thing that every veterinarian faces, and and fatigue UM is a real issue in our field, and and certainly we uh. I think most veterinarians tend to be quiet when people ask what we do because it's going to be quickly followed up with either cell phone pictures of animals or or questions

about issues with their animals at home. Yeah. Yeah, It's kind of like when you're outdoor writer who specializes in deer hunting and you go to a deer show you see an awful lot of pictures of people posing with their bocks. Yeah, and unfortunately, I think I get hit from both angles. So yeah, I'll bet you do work in working at Penn State the way that you do. So what was the interest though, in you know, pathology with where did that come from in your life? Just

just always curious about it? Yeah, I mean, I think with wildlife health, you know, there there's a variety of ways you can approach that. We certainly have UM instances where we are treating individual animals UM, whether that's for you know, a larger purpose like a research study or because um for that of an individual animal need um. But but I've always had a fascination with diseases and how they maintain and how they can impact populations and

individual animals. UM. And so I've always had an interest in disease ecology, and so I just linked that together with my interest in in population health and while left conservation. So that's that's sort of how I I got into the field. UM. But I think I'm sort of an eternal student and I uh, I think I'm always sort of adapting what I do within the field of wildlife

health and disease. Yeah, you seem to, uh, you know, we're going to get into you know, white tail anatomy and their evolution and in a little bit here, but your research has covered a crazy amount of different animals, mostly big game animals, a lot of birds, and you you really seem to have kind of covered the gamut as far as just looking into different species and not

really drilling down on one particular species. Yeah. And I think, you know, I think once you have an interest in in health and disease, UM, I think it's easy to

switch systems you're working in. UM. So I started out when I was in bed school working on on a project on box turtles, and then my PhD was looking more at at waterfowl, goals and other alien species, and um, you know, we've all I've always had an interest in mammals too, So I think it's fairly easy to switch systems and and oftentimes there may be an underlying health

issue or disease issue that affects birds, mammals, humans, amphibians, etcetera. So, um, there there are a lot more links between those different host systems, and probably people realize, yeah, it's it's an interesting field, and it's what what was an eye opener for me is just just looking at your published research.

I'm like, man, I had no idea some of these animals I love, like wild turkeys and grouse, and obviously what tales some of the some of the stuff that's out there that can get them or you know, at least infect them and alter their quality of life. Like I it was kind of a kind of nightmare fuel Man.

It was a little bit of an eye opener. Yeah, yeah, and I think you know, and we'll talk a lot a lot about this, particularly um in regards to anatomy, but you know, I think whenever we're in the field of health and disease, the approach I always take is define what normal is so that you can recognize and hopefully respond appropriately to ab normal and and when we talk about you know, viruses, bacteria, parasites, sometimes normal for wildlife is is even having those things you know, you know,

so we can have a wild turkey that has you know, nema, todes and sintestinal track and and that's not a that's not a disease issue. They normally harbor those and so um. When you when you start to get into this field, there's a lot of work that can be done simply on a identifying and characterizing what what what's normally out there,

even if it's in the absence of disease. So you find yourself sometimes studying something just just to recognize what the baseline is for a species before you can move

on to some of these outlier infections or something like that. Absolutely, I think I think that is the approach I always take because far too often we identify an abnormal disease or a major disease issue and we don't have that baseline information on what's normal, and so we often jump to conclusions that aren't accurate or we don't know how

to interpret data. And you know, we see that all the time, whether it's you know, something like stars Cove two or you know, the influenza viruses that we're seeing spreading around. You know, a lot of times we don't have that normal data to put those abnormal events in the context. Yeah, I mean, maybe maybe I'm way off here, and maybe I'm biased because I'm sitting here with COVID right now, uh, with a low level of misery coursing

through my body. But it's sort of it sort of reminds me of this issue with the pandemic of of how vastly different, you know, the consequences for contracting COVID have been where you know, some people's immune system and whatever, you know, contributing factors seem to just handle it really really well, and other people seem to get really really hard. So you kind of got to have a baseline there.

But it's that's not a simple thing to come across, absolutely no. And when we talk about diseases of wildlife, oftentimes the term that uses is multi factorial, and that just means it's not a causal event. So it's not always. If you get this pathogen or this bacteria, this virus, you get a disease and it looks like this. You can see a spectrum of signs from no, no clinical signs too, fatal infection and and a lot of those

depend on various factors. And when you're dealing with something like wildlife, a whole host of different things coming to play on how severe disease will be, whether it's host genetics, habitat they're using, what how they're exposed, and how much are they exposed, do they have any underlying diseases, and so, you know, as far as studying disease, there's there's almost a limitless number of questions that we have to address before we can really understand what's going on in wildlife.

Is there when you're you know, when you're sitting there and you're like, I need somebody to hand me a sick bird or something so you have something to study. Is there? Uh? Is there? Sort of I don't know how to put this kind of a push, you know, I know at Penn State there's a big deer research search program and a lot of the really cool research

studies come out of there. Is there somewhat of a push to study animals like white tails over some of the less popular animals that aren't you know, maybe so tied into U to us socially. Absolutely, Yeah, there's always going to be uh, you know, an emphasis or funding that's available for certain species over others. You know, there's a ton of work that needs to be done on

non game species. Uh. And some of that may be because it's hard to get your hands on a forested songbird, you know, and and so that's that that could be an issue. But other other reasons might just be lack of funding to support some of this research. When you get into some of the disease research, it can be really expensive and the costs can build up quite quickly. And so you know, if it's an ego dying of something,

it's it's fairly easy to get funding for it. If it's a turkey vulture, you're you're probably looking at a smaller pool of funds that you're looking for. And so, um, that is something that that we face. Um is is trying to conduct research on some of these species where the interest and funding maybe lacking. I could see that. I suppose there's probably a benefit to an animal like a white tail too. Just from the captive servant industry, you can you can get your hands on test subjects. Yeah,

and there's it's just very easy to get samples. Now, maybe it gets a little harder if you have a specific sample you're targeting. But if you're just saying I just need to go out and get samples, but then you've got you know, a whole lot of harvested deer during certain times a year, you can go out and get road kills and sample them and that's pretty easy. Um. So detection is a major issue. You know, we've done work over the last few years with grouse looking at

at West Nyland. Some of the issues grouse are are are facing. Um And one of the real challenges early on was to find sick and dead birds because if a grouse dies of a viral infection in the woods, I mean, the chances of you getting your hands on it are are pretty load and non existent. Um And so, yeah, detection and getting samples in hand for some these species

is a real challenge. How do you get your hands on a grouse that died from western ale Ben I was hoping you could tell me, because pu you're here looks like you got a grouse in the dog's mouth. But yeah, I mean that's something we actually worked at. And um, we utilized hunters quite a lot. And so people that were out um you know, with their dogs, you know, working their dogs, training their dogs, and came upon you know, carcasses or birds that were down and

not doing well. Um, you know, those were all options we looked at. So that's that's a unique advantage of you know, studying something in a game animal. Then you have you have people out there who are gonna be gathering samples for you for totally unrelated reasons that you

might be able to tap into. Absolutely. Yeah, And I think you know, one of the beauties of working with hunters or trappers or or anyone that is is an enthusiast of the outdoors is, um, if they're interested, it's really easy to get them involved and excited about research project. And so um, you know we used to go to a wild turkey uh, you know check stations or or bear check stations, and and and hunters are always interested in hearing about what you're looking for and things like that. So, um,

it's a nice social component to the disease research. Yeah, there's there's a benefit there. Um. Can we can we talk about one of the research studies that I read that you were a part of, was was dedicated to looking for uh better ways to gather genetic samples from white deal deer. Can we talk about that? Sure? What

was the idea behind that? Just just because of all the disease study and everything, having a larger I don't know, I guess pool to draw from in an easier way to get those samples from across the country just makes your job that much easier. We were looking UM in that study at landscape genetics and genetics UM in white tails across parts of Pennsylvania, and so UM you can gain genetic material during certain times of the year and from certain animals like harvested deer. You could you can

use hair, you can use tissue, anything like that. UM. But what we're starting to look for, we're ways that we could gather at without having that that carcass in hand or without having a dead animal UM. And so we were looking at things like oral swabs UM and and things like that where we could sample UM in in non traditional ways. But what what's the what's the end goal there or what's the bigger picture with those samples?

I think whenever you're dealing with something like that and you have limitations in wildlife, one of the things at least that I always look for is you have all these hurdles and limit taeans to answer some of these questions, like you can only get deer during this time of year or from from this type of animal, whether it's a road kill or something like that, and and some of those may not be of the highest quality. UM. So some of that research was just trying to expand

the tools that we had in our our arsenal. Right, so UM, you're not just reliant on finding a dead animal or having someone harvested. And by having more tools, that opens up opportunities to say, we can now sample here, if you can get this, we can use that um. And so it just gives us more options in regards to sampling different parts in different different areas and categories

of animals UM. And by doing that, what the ultimate goal would be is to expand that sampling to a wider a wider area and and and different category of deer. Because if you start to get into how can you sample live animals, then that can address different questions in regards to genetics. How so, um, if you had an animal in hand, um, particularly if it was a captive or something like that, you could collect a sample without having to euthanize the animal or without having to do

an invasive procedure. And that's that's obviously something you'd want over over the alternative. But but where I'm going with this is what what's the larger picture usage that. Can you give me an example of like why it would be why it's beneficial for you to have that wider range of genetic samples And in then that case, it would really depend on on the question itself. Um. So for dear, it's not as complicated because we have our

hands on so many of them. But if we're talking about translocating or moving, or if it's a captive and it's moving several different areas, then we can have different samples that are available without having to collect tissue. Um. If that makes sense, Yeah, that makes sense. Let's let's switch up here and talk about some uh, some of the history of white tails. And you're you're you're a student of their anatomy. Is that correct? Correct? Yeah? So I teach anatomy uh here at Penn State, and it's

always been one of my favorite subjects to teach. Again, I think it relates back to as a pathologist. One of the tools we use to study disease is knee cropsy, which is an animal autopsy where we're actually dissecting them and looking for any abnormalities or or things signs of disease or lesions UM. And in order to do that, again, we have to know what normal is UM and so a lot of what we teach in anatomy is what are the different tissues, what do they look like, what

do they do? Um and and part of that comes down to again building that library of what normal is. So then you can understand if you if you see abnormal or disease, give me an example of something you've seem really abnormal in a white tail you know I can get. I'll give you even a better one. Some some of the normals that people think are abnormal UM so deer as you you you may know, have um hemal nodes, which are sort of these little um They're like a lymph node, but they're more related to blood.

And so there are these sort of little circular nodular um structures that are that can be found throughout the body, but oftentimes they're sort of in the abdomen and thorax along sort of as you're looking up at the spine in that fat area. A lot of people think that there are areas of bleeding or hemorrhage, but it's actually just a little normal anatomy of of deer that we

we frequently will have people send us pictures of. So when people are field dressing or butchering their deer, they see those and they think it's there's something severely wrong with their deer, and they want they want to know what it's got. But it's actually a pretty normal thing, exactly. They always a lot of times what we'll hear is it looks like there's areas of hemorrhage along sort of the inner inner fat and the body cavity, and those

are just normal human nodes. What what what is their function? They they like a lymph node, There are filtering organ for the blood rather than for limb. Give me an example of something in a white tail's anatomy besides that

that that fascinates you. I think you know, obviously deer now now we can see white tails anywhere, but they've historically obviously evolved to be enforceded environments and particularly on those forest edges um And So I think what fascinates me about deer is a lot of their muscular skeletal anatomy UM. So you know, if we talk about deer as a specifically white tails, as being really adapted to be for for running UM, the term we often use

for that is curs orel um. And so what that just means is a lot of the anatomy and and adaptations we see are built so that they can be really strong runners um. And And obviously any of us that have have hunted for them or even just watch them can can appreciate how how fast and how good they are running UM. But some of the things that they've adapted to allow them to do that are are

pretty unique. UM. If you look at deer, and this is true almost of any sort of cursorial or running species, a lot of times what they'll do is put the heavy part of the lower limbs up towards the body and then it'll be skinnier the farther you go out

on the limb. And that's really true of deer. You know, if you look, a lot of their muscles are on the upper four limbs or in the rump area, and then they come down and they have really skinny lower lower distal limbs, And the reason for that is it lessens the weight down that lower part of the limb and allows them to just move move that lower limb faster. The other thing they've done is adapted their length of

their limb. So if you look at a deer's leg um, we can talk about different ways animals can stand right, and so the slowest way an animal can stand is what we call planet grade, which is what we are right where our heel is completely flat and our whole foot is flat on the ground. When you look at deer, what they've actually done is adapted so they're basically walking

on on their tiptoes right. And so if you actually look at the leg of a deer, they are almost that whole almost the distal third of their leg is actually their foot that's now adapted so that they're running on their toes right. So it's significantly lengthened the length of their limb and just allows them to run faster and hold on in one second, So is that when

when you describe that. Is that just purely for uh, for them to be really quick or is it is it for them to go from you know, stationary to move in fast quickly A little bit of both, so you know what it basically the two ways the big functions you can are ways you can run faster is if your legs move faster and if each step is longer, right, And so doer have adapted to have both of those one again, they have they don't have a lot of weight on that lower limb, so it allows them to

move it faster and then as a length in that leg for each step they get to go further. Interesting. I mean, I think that's one of the things that always kind of surprises people who aren't that familiar with white tails when you when they get their hands on one for the first time, is how tiny their lower legs are. And you know, when you watch a deer jump like a six seven foot fence, it just doesn't seem to add up in our minds. It's a different

kind of anatomy. Absolutely yeah, and it's it's it can look ridiculous when they're walking on like a road. When you actually see them move and run, it all sort of ties together and makes sense. So is there in the history of the white tail? You know, can you can you go back in time and find an ancestor to them who didn't have uh, you know, who maybe had stock ear shorter legs. Can can we see this this process playing out in any way? Um, you'd have to go back pretty pretty far to get at those.

But there are some subtle differences even when you look about look at like the movement patterns of even something like mule deer relative to white tails, just in the habitat they use. You don't see it as much in the anatomy, but you do in sort of the the way that they move whereas white tails are are you know, built for speed Newley's maybe a little bit more of that to to bouncing around a little bit more in their their habitat. But are their legs have their legs

evolved any differently? Because I mean when you when you watch those meal dear stot up the hillside, you know that's a different gait than a white tail, but it's is there a difference in their anatomy? You you would you would have to put on your goggles pretty closely to see subtle differences in in in regards to their their muscular skeletal anatomy. Yeah. Do do the subspecies of of deer in North America? Do they all share a

common ancestor they? Well? I think there are some comp you know, and certainly I may not be the best person to speak of that, but I think there are some competing theories about that. Some people believe they do and some people believe they don't. Right. Yeah, Yeah, I know there's some some differences on, you know, in ancestry between like black tails, white tails, and new Lee's as

far as how each of those evolved. Yeah, I suspect if I guess, if you have to go back far enough, you'd you'd figure out where the elk and the moose and a couple of other species came from. Too. Exactly exactly what do you think? That gets outside of my expertise? Nobody cares, man, Just just take a guess. What is your What does your gut say? Um? I I think they share a comedy ancestor all the subspecies I do too. Are you Are you willing to go on record for that? Sure?

I'm just I'm just a wildlife that I got nothing to lose. I guess, I guess it really doesn't matter what else, what else about their anatomy is is fascinating to you as far as there you know adaptations to their environments. Well, I think whenever you deal with a rumin in um, that always fascinates me just how much they can get in regards to energy and nutrition out of out of food resources that we can't use as monogastrics.

And when you say monogastrics, we mean um species with one stomach UM, so it's gonna be a lot of your mammals um. But ruminants have four chambers to their stomach uh, and it allows them to eat plant matter uh and things that have cellulose in them um, which is something obviously that monogastrics can't use. If you've seen your dog eat grass and it comes out the other end looking fairly similar, you realize that they're not getting

much from that. But when you look at deer or ruminants um, they have rumen which allows them to have microbes and bacteria and parasites that allow them to break down that plant matter and get resources and nutrients from it, whereas we cannot. And so that's always sort of fascinated me just how how they've adapted to to to take advantage something that we can. Yeah, they're they're pretty efficient at at you know, ringing the most bioavailability out of

out of a wide variety of food sources. It's it's pretty incredible. Yeah, And and there are subtle differences between um, you know, and maybe even not subtle, but between like some of our domestic ruminants and and and wild ruminants. So if you think of cattle, they're they're considered more of a general grazer. So it just means that they are obviously obviously most often eating grass and other other things in the field, whereas deer um are more selective.

They're more browsers where they're actually going through the woods and and picking off the most nutrient rich parts of the plant um. So they're a little bit more selective in in what they eat, and you can see that in the anatomy a little bit um. You know, grazers have sort of that wide muzzle if you think of like a cow, whereas deer have a more narrow muzzle, and it allows them to be a little bit more selective and pick off what they want as they're going

through the woods. How how do they study? So this is gonna be a weird thing. But I got to see I guess I'm not gonna say the company, but I got to see how a company was studying how dairy cows digest different foods one time, and there was like a port right in the side of this cow that they could reach into the various chambers of the stomach and literally take stuff out. Uh. Is there anything like that people are doing to white tails? I've not

seen it there. You're called fistulated cattle, and it's basically where they um make, like you said, a port into their room in um and then they have sort of what looks almost like a cork and they can close off that opening to the room and UM. I have not seen one for deer, although you know, it wouldn't surprise me if they did. UM, But now I've not seen one. And some of it may be that the rouman in DearS is quite a bit smaller than it is in in cattle. Yeah, a little harder to get

in there and root around. I would guess. Do you think that the average hunter really underestimates the diversity of a white tails diet? I think so and I think they underestimate or or not even underestimate. But um, I think it would be surprising for them to realize how adaptable it is. Um. You know, we the rouman and the flora in it, in dear is dynamic, and so it's not like they are getting the same concentrate and same diet as they go through the year with white tails.

Their room in and the microbes inside of it are adapting as the plants are changing on the landscape, right, and so the ruman can change every It takes about you know, two to three weeks maybe a little longer for those microbes to adapt. And so as the seasons are changing, the room and flora is adapting so that they can take advantage of the changing plant matter on the on the landscape, so as it goes from something really lush in the summer to something that may be

more fibrous than the winter. They're their room and content is changing to to allow that adaptation to it to occur. So are you saying that they're they're gut microbiome essentially is kind of changing throughout the year to adapt to

the food sources that are available. Correct, I mean, and it happens slowly, and that's where we run into problems at times with with feeding or something like that in the winter because they're adapting to that high fibrous diet and then they're getting a sudden bolus of a real lush, concentrated material and and their their g i flora doesn't

have time to adapt, right. So is that like when you know, you take a winner ring heard here, let's say in Minnesota, and it's been you know, maybe living off a kind of woody browse or whatever it can find, and then all of a sudden, somebody goes and dumps a bunch of corn out there and they've got this this food source that they haven't had for months, and it's full of carbs and not you know, not what they're not what they're built for at the moment, and

they get really really sick and some of them die. Yeah, exactly. The disease is called acidosis um and there's some other diseases you can see with it um. But but but it's that same idea, And so sometimes we'll get questions of y see deer you know in my corn fields in the summer and they're doing fine, and and again it's because it's it's the speed at which you make

that change. Right, So if in the winter, if they're slowly adapting over months to that fiberus diet and then they get into a starchy high concentrate, is that abrupt change more than it is just solely that they're getting into carbs? Can I can I ask you something that I've always thought was bullshit about what hunters say. So you and you've heard this a million times, right, like people will say, oh, you know, you shoot a deer down in Iowa, it's that corn fed deer and it's delicious.

And when I you know, I hunt all over, hunt big woods and hunt out west. I hunt a lot of places where there aren't deer anywhere near cornfields, right, And even when you do shoot a deer that's eaten writing in a corn field, but you watch them come out there, they're browsing their whole way out there? Is that bs like the corn fed idea? But when you talk about a browser like that, I think they can get nutrition in a variety of different landscapes and not

just the corn um. You know, I think whenever you get that high, that that big deer, the you know, really well well nutrition and well muscle, and it's always going to be a combination of genetics as well as as nutrition. Um. And so No, I don't think it's exclusive to the to the to the corn fields, although that's probably a pretty uh pretty good die form there. Well,

I mean, they definitely use it. I just you know, I hear people refer to it all the time like it's a cow that was, you know, And it's just you watch them in their natural world, and the white tails are just not living like that. They're not going up to a feed trough, and it's just seems like

they're so much more diverse. And that's that's one of the things that always amazes me about deer and you know, and turkeys and kind of everything, you know, trout everything that you kind of start to look into their stomach after you you kill them. It's like, man, they've they're they're taking advantage of their environment in a way that I think we just totally don't understand for the most part.

Oh yeah, no, And and again, I mean grouse are probably the perfect for that, right you know, it's it's so fun to look through grouse crops. Yeah, yeah, they've they you know, we we hunt them quite often, and so we but it's a lot of late season stuff. So you you'd think, you know, like they're on some kind of catkins or something, and you know, oftentimes they are. But even then, if you, you know, kill one in late December, it's still pretty incredible what they might have

in their crop. Yeah. Yeah, I love that. My little girls do too. When you you know, like when we go fishing, if I if I keep some fish and open it up, they're always amazed at the bugs and and in different things that that the fish eat. Um, what what else about a white tails anatomy? What besides besides their ability to run really fast and that adaptation, uh, and their ability to eat just about everything that they

can come across that they could digest. What what else is there that you just as a as a you know, a science person who's just really into them, Like, what is the thing that you're like? Man, that's so cool? Yeah, I think they're Their senses are always are pretty amazing. Again because they've now adapted, let's you know, say, evolutionarily to be in in in the forest, and when they do that, there are certain senses that may not function as well. You know, vision may be poor, and and

site maybe poor. You know, sound maybe maybe not good in the deep dense wooded forests. UM. And so they've adapted a variety of different senses to allow communication to occur. For the vision, I think what's really neat is how a depth they are at seeing at night. And so if you look at sort of the eyes of deer, they have a higher proportion of of rods in their retinas sort of that that back part of the eye.

And what that allows them to do is the rods are the part of the photoreceptor in the eye that allows you to see better at low light. UM. And they're all so really good. Rods are also really good at seeing motion. Right. And so when you think of like what a deer needs to see at night, to see in dark, to see in in areas where there's not a lot of light, but also to see motion as a as a prey species. UM. The other thing that they've done is they have this this structure in

their eye. So if you've ever seen a deer in headlights and they had sort of that reflective part of their eye, UM, that's actually a structure that is within it's a membrane in their eye that sort of reflects the light back across the retina and it allows them to see better at lower levels of light or species like humans cannot. So um, they've got some pretty neat things in their eyes to allow them to to see

well even at low light. Why maybe this is a really really dumb question, but why why did they adapt to move at night? Like? Why are they so adapted

to be out there feeding around at night? Because I know I can't remember what it was, but I read a book on tigers that you know, Mark the main host of this recommended to me, and they were talking about humans evolution and some of the primates and stuff, and how how we were like, you know what, we're getting up into a tree or we're getting into a cave when nightfalls, because that's when the bad stuff comes out. But there's other prey animals that are just that's their

time to shine. Why why is that the case for the white tail? You know, and and and A biologists may may even be better at answering that than me, But I would think that anything anytime they can move without um with with reduced likelihood of being predated upon, they may take advantage of And so if you think about them bedding down during the day and and taking a meal and bedding down and sort of ruminating and getting their digestion, do they're moving more at night where

visibility is going to be low. And again, they have those that high level of rods in their eyes, So if you do have movement in very dark conditions, you are much more likely to pick that up than than something that doesn't have those structures in their eyes. So I think they they have an advantages. And it's always gonna be the question of what came first, the chicken or the egg. Did they have those evolutionary advantages to move at night? Um or did they evolve because they

were moving at night? Do you think maybe you know this is are their eyes better at night than you know, some of the predators that they tend to deal with? I mean, you know, can a wolf see as good at night as a deer? You know, I don't know if it can see if one might be better than the other, but I would imagine dear with the structures that we already listed, as well as sort of their eyes being um on either side of their head align them to see almost three degrees around them that they'd

be pretty good um at at out competing them at night. Yeah, I guess even if they were you know, had had very similar eyesight capabilities at night, if you can see that range and your your eyesight is evolved to really pick up movement and react to it, you know, in like micro seconds, then that's all you need. I mean, obviously you're not gonna win every time, but it's going to give you an advantage in that, you know, in

that space anyway exactly. And then you combine that with you know, they're keen sense of smell as well as as good hearing. I think they've got a lot to give them the upper hand at night. Do you think the vision is the most important sense for predator detection for predator detection detection, um, you know, I I'm not sure.

I think I think it's the compilation of all of them, and it really sort of depends on on the environment because you you know, certainly when dear look up, you know they've they've they've got that good vision, particularly at night. But I mean I think hearing, you know, when you see him move those those sort of pinna of their ear to sort of triangulate those noises that are coming, and scent, which they have a really good sense of smell of smell, I mean, I think all of those

work together. Yeah, they've they've got a few tools in the kid anyway. Huh yeah. Yeah. Do you do you think there's any validity to the argument that they have a sixth sense about detecting predators? Um? I think it might depend on what you're calling that. I mean, you know, they do have um, something called vom or faction, which is sort of like a mixture of smell and taste. Um. But but I don't know if I don't think of it as much with predators, more of like UM, dear

to deer communication. Hold on, can you explain that? So have you ever looked at sort of there on the upper part of their oral cavity, they have sort of that little circular structure right where they're like dental pad would be, so in it there that's um, they have, UM, they have a bom or nasal organ So right above there they have a structure that can take in some of these scent chemicals and they can process it. It's

sort of in their their nasal cavity area. So if you ever see um if you're like a flaming response, where like boxes sort of curl their lips a little bit when they get a scent of a dough um in the rut. What they're doing is actually a response to those chemicals, which is sort of a mixture of taste and smell. So that that's an adaptation that goes

beyond just their amazing sense of smell. Yeah, it's it's almost again like a combination of those two where it's sort of sampling that um smell and taste chemical in the in the air. Yeah, So that like in the case of the flaming response, that or you take a dough she she walks by, she PE's on the ground, He heads over there, he smells it. There's there are things that he can't get out of that just through taking a whiff. He's got to actually kind of hork

it through his mouth and work it through that. Yeah, he sort of takes it. And what happens is they take it and they get it in their mouth and they with their tongue sort of pushed the chemical up into the romonasal organ uh. And then that's that's their response off in that curling of the lips that response. So let's let's take this back a second, and how how does that tie into their potentially being a sixth sense. Possibly that could be the sixth one they're talking about.

Oh so what I meant by that is hunters will often say, you know, I never moved and never I never did anything, and that buck looked up at me. And people say this all the time. And we've even had you know, we've we've had people designed suits that were designed to block your electro magnet to signal thinking that you know, deer might or you know, other big game animals might be picking up on that. And it's always mixed in with this idea that they've got a

sixth sense for detecting us somehow that we don't. That's not like that's simply explainable biologically. Does that make sense? It does? I'm not sure I I go that far. You can say it's bullshit your scientist, Yeah, but I you know, I like ideas like that. Um, I'm just not sure I have the data support it yet, but I'll keep looking. Yeah, so you don't believe it. I don't.

I don't believe it. Yeah, I think that we look for excuses sometimes for the fact that we're you know, two pounds and hanging off the side of a tree, and that deer knows the entire area he lives in so well that when there's suddenly something there like that, he suddenly, you know, out of his peripheral vision goes, no,

that can't be right. Yeah. Yeah. It could be just I smell like coffee, well maybe, or or it could be just the fact that you're, you know, a full size human hanging off the side of a tree and they're like, yeah, I don't. I mean, I see deer that that spooks sometimes when they see trail cameras in new spots. And I mean, there might be a sentence component to that, But when you when you see a deer react to a little tiny box on the side of a tree, it's not that it's not that hard

for me to believe that. Sometimes they just pick us out even when we don't move. It is amazing what they can pick up on, right, Yeah, let's react to Yeah it is. And and I'm always curious and this this is probably probably not entirely true, but I believe it sometimes. So if I get if you know, this happens to me a lot in northern Wisconsin for some reason.

But if I hang a camera, even if I put it up six seven ft and I angle it down to kind of get it out of their sight line and just just be less intrusive, I still get dear that that spot it and you can tell, and you know, you might get a series of pictures of them spooking, and if it's a specific buck, I often don't get them back there, And I'm always like, is that possible? Like are they are they that good at being like that doesn't belong here? I'm not going to walk in

front of it again? Or is that all in my head? Yeah? Yeah, something threw me off. Yeah, you know, I just don't know, I mean, and it makes me wonder about their memory, Like I don't. I don't know if if anybody's ever studied that or not, like how how they can remember things like that or how good their memory is. Do you know? I actually don't. I don't. I'd like to hear it. I mean, I don't. I don't know. I think of if I've read any studies about memory like that?

Can I can I ask you something different? Then? Um? I was I was reading this is really dumb. I was reading about uh space and and the gravity of black holes and how gravity can actually influence time, and so it's kind of ties back to like Einstein's theory of relativity, like how we perceive time is different than how time is perceived in other places, or I mean, you know, like other parts of the Solar system, in

other parts of the universe. As far as you know how much gravity is bending time, I guess it is.

And anyway, when I was reading about this, the author referenced to to kind of frame it up, said dogs and cats experienced time differently than we do and and and he put it in terms of like frames per second, and dogs actually experienced time slower than we do, uh in in this argument, and that you know they that that's kind of like his explanation was, like, it's kind of like, you know, if you watch a snake strike at a dog, a lot of times, it's like their

slow motion moving out of the way. They can kind of they can react really really well sometimes if they know what's coming. And I always wonder about that with deer, and it like breaks my brain. I'm not smart enough to actually understand this, but I think about it with like deer jump in the string when you when you shoot at him, or some of the ways they react, and like are they just experiencing time differently than us and just getting out ahead of us and we don't

understand it why? I mean, I think there is there are, there are some studies and I haven't seen him in dear, but about like fast twitch muscles, you know, like speed and quick reaction times and things like that. Um, I don't know if they're actually perceiving it slower. Are they just moving that much faster? You know? I wonder? Um, But yeah, I mean I think I think definitely even from like a muscle physiology standpoint, Um, deer, deer can can react faster than things like humans. Do you know

how much faster? No clue are you going to study that? That might be here? Let me just make a note here that might be on my list. I've got a few things here that sixth cents and and how fast? What? What is something? What is something anatomy wise or in the white tail's history? That is is the mystery to you that you would like to figure out? Mm hmm.

You know, I don't know if one of the things that from a health standpoint is we deal a lot with capture myopathy and dear um and that is a basically a disease we see that's associated with muscle exertion and stress. And so whenever you're trapping deer catching deer um, it can be a pretty significant issue that we deal

with UM. And you know, dear are just wound so tight that I would love at some point to figure out would there ever be anything we can do from a from a handling standpoint to limit some of that capture myopathy because it is probably one of the biggest things we face whenever again, whenever we're trapping deer, coloring anything like that, UM. They just have this high stress physiologic reaction that can actually lead to to mortality in

them UM. And so I think from a functional standpoint, trying to figure out, like what is it in dear that makes them so stressed and that they're wound so tight that that that we have this disease that we we deal with UM when we handle them. Do you see that in other animals? We do, and you can see it in almost anything. We even have like a woodpecker one time that uh that they put a backpack

harness on and that got it. So you can see it in almost any species, um, but it tends to be in those that are wound really tight, you know, high stressed animals, and there's I just don't think there's anything that's wound as tight as white tail. If you've ever have you I don't know if you've ever a clover trapped or done anything like that. I mean, they're they're just wound tight. Does it happen with predators, Yeah, predator species, like when we're handling them. Yeah, Like if

you're trapping predators that they get the same thing. Yeah, not nearly as much though. I Mean again maybe if you had like a long translocation event um, and you had something that was a little bit more high stress, it could happen. I'd have to go back. I mean it's been reported in almost any species. I probably the least likely you'd see it would be something like a

black bear that's just just more laid back. Yeah. Well, it's something that isn't under you know, at least when they get to a certain age, isn't under a constant threat of you know, getting eating or attacked because they're pretty confident in a lot of their environments unless they

mix it up with a grizzly or a bigger black bear. Um. That's interesting because so I hunted in in South Africa and like two thousand and seven for when I was at Peterson's Bow Hunting magazine, and I didn't really understand when they sent me over there. I didn't really understand how the whole hunting thing worked over there. And you know, everything's high fence and there's a big animal trade over there,

and it's it's a weird deal. But I was talking to the outfitter about it because I was just fascinated by m. Paula's I thought, I thought they were so beautiful and they were so cagy, like if you you know, you want to talk about something that would give a white tail a run for its money. At least where I was, Those in Paula were no joke as far as what they would tolerate and how they'd react to

a shot. And I was talking to him about that and he said they are a nightmare to trap and transplant, and he he referenced, he said, you know, like a lot of them don't make it, and yeah, I have never heard anybody say that. I mean, you hear about some mortality, you know, post trapping and mortality and white tails, but not not framed up quite the way that you put it. It's interesting, Yeah, it is, and and and

so the same exact thing. I mean, you know, whenever you're doing uh, translocation or even just handling them and putting in collar on them, you know, you you take all these different measures to keep them cool because they're going to get a spiking temperature. Um, you know, their body just physiologically it just gets going, so gets gets ramped up, and so um. It's an It's interesting to me. It makes sense. I mean, it's a prey species, and

so that reaction makes sense to me. But it doesn't always, at least as a scientist, makes sense that it would be so bad that it could kill them. You know. Yeah, well that it seems like a weird a weird reaction. Yeah. Yeah, And it's your interest in trying to figure that out. Obviously, there's the aspect of you just don't want your test subjects to die, are like, you don't want a certain percentage of them to die for you to be able

to do your science. But is it also is there also something along the lines of like you know, tainted samples or something like that, or you don't know, you know, maybe you're not getting like a true representative sample of that animal as soon as you capture it, because it's it's body, it literally changes when it's trapped. I'm a little bit of that, but I think probably more just

the survivability, you know, like we put callers. I mean, there's so much interesting wildlife research going on, and and we get so much data when we do these coloring studies or movement studies, and and and I think the biggest limitation we have for those right now is is captured myopathy and so from a from a health and disease standpoint of our our research. Um, I think that that would open up a lot more um for a lot of these wound up unlits. Yeah, that that that

makes sense. What one thing I'm always curious about with white tails or just you know, game animals specifically, is some of them are so adaptable, and some of them don't seem to be like some of them play well

with man, some of them don't. And when you take like just as an example, like meal deer, you know you can you can see videos of meal deer in the suburbs of Denver and in places like that, living in people's backyards, and you can see some of that interaction with man made stuff, but it's not they're They're generally thought of as a species that's kind of like likes to be out on its own, doesn't like a

lot of interference. And then you take something like a white tail, and they can they seem to be able to live just about anywhere. What why like why why is the species like that so adaptable to so many different environments and conditions. Yeah, I mean, I I I wish I knew. I mean, they really are have just filled every niche, right, I mean I remember I was out on the outer banks of North Carolina and they were they were there there on the beach. You know.

It's just they've filled every sort of habitat um And so I I don't exactly know. I mean, I think they can take advantage of a lot from uh nutrition standpoint um, And I think all the adaptations that allowed them to live in those sort of edge habitats can work just as well when they're in sort of suburban neighborhoods.

Is there a is there like a fecundity or component to it, like is there is there just uh, you know, they're they're good at making new generations of deer, so these adaptations have a chance to take hold, I think, I mean, I think that's part of it. Um. I think whenever you have a species that that is doing well reproductively, um, then they're just going to have the

baseline tools they need to do well. And the same thing with with bears or anything like that, black bears at least, you know that if if they can take advantage of the nutrition in an area, especially if they can can use a wide range of nutritional resources, and they can they're good at making more of themselves, then I think the default is that they're going to do well.

I guess that's kind of like what you said before with the chicken or the egg thing, where you know, it's like if they're if they're really capable of adapting, they're going to make more babies. You know, it's not it's not necessarily that they just they're just blessed to be to be able to produce a bunch of babies and then adapt all over the place. It actually probably

goes the other way more. Yeah, yeah, exactly, And I think, you know, when we look at disease, there are certainly some examples where disease by itself can impact a species. Certainly if we look at something like white nose syndrome, some of the amphibian fungal diseases, we've got a lot

of those examples. But probably more often than not, when we're talking about population level impacts the disease, it's often again multi factorial, where there's a species that is already having issues, whether it's not not enough habitat or you know, something else. Then when disease comes on top of that, that's when we have a real problem. Yeah, what is that?

Is that one of the biggest challenges for you know, somebody in your line of work, because I know, you know, I know, dealing with the general hunting population, it's like very easy to try to just boil something down to

be like, oh, there's there's not enough deer. It's because the DNR wanted them killed, or there's not enough deer because of this or that, and and it really kind of dismisses the amount of environmental variables and the amount of individual animal variables and and the really nuanced like picture of wild game populations. It's it's pretty dismissive of that. Is that pretty? Is that? Is that a tough one

to swallow for you? Sometimes it's it's a challenge, But I think oftentimes, you know, hunters can pick up on some of the issues more than just the general public. You know, and and and grouse might be the perfect example where you know, they were It took some discussions and showing them, showing data and things like that, but I think they understood that habitat and and not enough at least in the east, not enough young forest habitat

was an issue. But the hunters recognized that they were seeing declines at even in areas where there was good habitat right. And that's sort of what sparked that whole research was hunters being like, I am hunting in like prime grouse habitat, and I'm not seeing the birds like

I used to. And so, you know, once the strongest disease research you can do is when you can really bring sort of some of these outdoors men and women into into the research so that they can recognize that, yes, disease is having an impact in addition to some of these other challenges that that species might be facing. Yeah, well, I want to give you an example that I want. I want your take on it, because I know you've

studied birds a lot. So this this spring, I was turkey hunting down in southwestern Wisconsin on a really good property, like it's this is normally not like that difficult of a place to kill a bird. You just isn't. And I went down there, uh, early May should have been prime, and I know in the winter there were there were quite a few birds wintering around there. There was a pretty good wintering flock, and it should have just been on and the weather was perfect. Everything. I couldn't hardly

get a gobble, couldn't, you know. The TROI cameras had been just empty for days. And I was sitting there the first night I got there, the first evening, and you know, I mean that that happens with hunting. Sometimes it just sucks and it's just, you know, it's beyond

me to be able to explain it why. But I was sitting there and I was texting my buddy and I was like, it feels like I'm hunting in a vacuum like I normally, when you're turkey hunting in the spring, you just hear this just coca puny of like songbird sounds, and you know, if you're close to water, there's all kinds of frogs and toads chirping, and it's just usually like a very audio wise, like a very vibrant time

to be out there. And it was just dead. And my buddy texted me, He's like, I don't know, maybe avian flu went through there, And I was like, no way, but but I've never experienced that before. And I know you've studied that. Is that is it crazy to think that's possible? You know it, We've we've done this a few It's a real challenge with with turkeys and flu because I think anyone that studies it probably assumes that wild turkeys are highly susceptible to these viruses that are

coming through UM. The difference is, I don't think they're exposed as much as what we think. UM. And we've done it a few times where we've looked for antibodies, and so basically, when you're looking for a virus, you can either look for the virus itself or you can look for antibodies. And all the antibodies tell you is that sometime in that animal's life, they were exposed to it,

to that virus, even if they're not infected now. And so we've actually looked for antibodies just to say, has this turkey ever been exposed to a flu virus, and we haven't found any um and and I think Minnesota actually repeated that after the last high path outbreak um and So I think it's not out of question to say wild turkeys could be impacted. I think it's just uncommon that they would, at least under the current situation,

be exposed, at least based on existing data. Now, if they were exposed and infected, I think this virus probably, if I had to guess, would um produce a fatal infection and would kill them pretty fast. What what what about the songbirds? Same thing the songbirds is a is a real question. And again just on that turkey. The one thing I would preface it by is just we've had high path virus has come through and haven't had a lot of wild turkey metality. Sporadic cases but not

a lot. So I think it might be again just an issue that they're not being exposed at the level that we think with the songbirds. Again, there's been some questions that should we take feeders down? Should we not? Um, this virus is circulating now can cause mortality in a wide diversity of species, and and it wouldn't surprise me if there are songbirds that it can cause fatal infections in.

I think when you're dealing with the virus, you have to say what's the highest risk and right now songbirds And this could change because these virus has changed very quickly, so this could change any time. But right now, I don't think songbirds are the highest risk for this virus. Right It's mainly ducks, waterfowl, some scavenging species, raptors, but songbirds are at least the ones that historically visit feeders

are probably lower on that list. Now if it if you were in a situation where you had a poultry flocked near to you and you're trying to go for zero risk or really low risk, I might take the feeders down. Interesting, So it's just an anomaly that it was, like I was hunting under a bell jar there for

a couple of hours. You never know. UM. I do think one of the challenges we face with disease is just what is sometimes the hardest thing to drive home to the public is is the emotional parts of disease. So when we deal with something like humor magic disease and you see dead animals everywhere, that is something that gets the public worked up, and that would be hunters or the general public because they can see dead things.

If we deal with something like c w D, where you might not see sick animals, you may not see dead animals, um but it's more of an impact on the population level and more slow and smoldering. It's a little harder to drive home that this is an important disease. And so oftentimes when we deal with that an issue in wildlife, the knee jerk reaction is to grab at the short of the short of the the shiny thing that's coming through the population now. But but it may

be multiple things going on. Yeah, well, let's let's end on that note. I've got I've got one question for you about deer and disease. We've we've talked a lot about c w D on this podcast Go I've got whole episodes coming out dedicated to it. So other than c w D, is there a disease out there in dear that you've run across that makes you a little

bit nervous about the future of White Tales. About the future White Tales, is there anything you've seen where you're like, I don't know, Man, if that one gets out and it really gets going, it could be trouble, you know, I don't I don't know if one's gonna they're certainly humor magic disease can cause a lot of mortality, but

we don't tend to see population level impacts. But that's something I think that's worth continuing the monitor because as as we see changes in where these midge vectors can go, we see outbreaks more frequently um. And so that's just something that even though I don't think it's going to cause declines in white tail, I think it's something worth monitoring because we can see these outbreaks more often um. And even though it doesn't cause that, we can tell

disease and dear um. I think one challenge that we're gonna have to figure out how to manage is going to be uh stars coronavirus in in in COVID nineteen and deer. Why do you say that because existing data is just showing that high prevalence of deer are infected, and so what is the best way to continue to hunt, process your animals, and monitor this safely and just be something that, just like everything else with the pandemic, we're gonna have to learn to to adapt our practices a bit.

Are you saying that because there's the potential for dear to be a carrier and then you go to butcher your buck and you might pick up a fresh case of COVID. You know, I don't know if we're at the level now to say that that's that is, um how feasible that is, but said certainly that in the grand scheme of things, would be the thing we're most

concerned of. So it's it's it's too early. I mean, you can't say that yet, but there's there's just a general concern that deer seemed to be carrying this around and we don't know what it means correct the man, Well, I think the concern is just you've got this virus that we're all have been dealing with and and trying

to manage for now two years. They are multiple concerns, but one being how are we going to manage it now that we may have this wildlife involvement, Because whenever wildlife is involved in a zoonotic disease or disease of humans. It's a control and management's a little harder. Uh. And then to you, what, how are we going to manage this in a game in probably one of the most important and popular game species, m as we move into this this hunting season. So this is this is a

really good example of just pure scientific interest. We don't we we know this is happening, we don't know what it means. We know it could be bad, could be a maybe a nothing burger, but we we really want to figure out. I think what the pandemics taught us is that we have to be adaptable, and we have to be ready for things to change, and we have to take the best precautions we have at the time that the data suggests. And and I think that's what

we're gonna have to do with this as well. Yeah, well I can tell you I agree with that as a guy who's sitting here with COVID. Uh. Justin thank you so much for coming on. Man, this was really really interesting. It was great talking to you. So we'll have to have to keep this up. Well, we'll do it again, but really, thank you, man. Yeah, thank you. That's it. For this week, folks, be sure to tune

in next week for more white tailed goodness. This has been wirre to hunt and I'm your guest host, Tony Peterson. As I always thank you, thank you, thank you so much for listening. And if you're looking for more white tail content, be sure to head on over to the meat eater dot com slash wired. Again, that's the meat eater dot com slash wired, and you'll see a pile of new articles each week by Mark myself and a

whole slew of white tail addicts. Or you can head on over to our wire to Hunt YouTube channel to see our weekly how to content that we put up