Habitat Requirement Summary for White-Tailed Deer

White-tailed deer (Odocoileus virginianus). Forest types range from tropical to temperate, semiarid to rainforest. Preferential habitat includes open woodlands with forest edges near brush lands, which includes abandoned and current agricultural fields (Kays and Wilson 2002).

FOOD REQUIREMENTS

White-Tailed deer diets are one of the most varied diets of herbivores. These diets have been shown to not differ by age, but instead by season. This is due to the availability of certain food sources (Raycroft 1999). It is because of this that deer maintain a mixed diet, depending on opportunities, in order to gain all needed nutrients and energy needed for survival (The Royal Society 1983). In doing this, certain plants that are normally toxic to other creatures are actually highly nutritious since they are mixed in with other plants (The Royal Society 1983) The best habitat for deer survival includes a variety of forage in order for the white-tail to achieve a balanced diet (Ffolliot 1981).

Spring

In Spring, white-tailed deer feed mainly on greenery. These include such plants as sweet clover, wild beans, ragweeds, sumacs, and poison ivy. White-tailed deer may also feed on various tree leaves, buds and saplings, such as quaking aspen, hemlock, multiple species of pine, oaks and elm trees (Ffolliot 1981). Due to the deer's love of hemlock saplings, there is a fear that these trees may die, leaving no trees in its place. Possibly leading to the extinction of hemlock (McShea 1997).

It is during this lush time of growth and opportunity that white-tails may also feed on berries that exist early in the season (Rue 2000). Also the melting frost makes way for green grasses, such as Anderopogon sp., Sporabulus sp., Fragrostis sp., and Uniola sp., various forbs including Aristolochia sp., Astragalus sp., Composite, Croton sp., Froelichia sp., legumes, Nicotina sp., Oenothera sp., Plantaga sp., and Solidago sp. (Warren 1990).

Summer