MILWAUKEE — Wisconsinites took to the woods Saturday, guns in hand, scopes sighted and coats zipped to combat the cooling weather, but not everyone needs a gun to shoot a deer.
If hunting is not your thing, taking pictures of deer can be just as rewarding. While wildlife photographers walk away with pictures and hunters walk away with venison, both should have the know-how to track and identify deer.
How to find deer:
Deer signs are traces they leave behind when passing through an area. This can be something like hoof prints, scat and bedding.
The tracks are side-by-side hoof prints that look like long ovals. There are usually four pairs, one pair for each foot, to point the tracker in the right direction.
Following prints is typically the easiest way to find a deer. Tracks are best seen in mud and snow, but fallen leaves, people walking over the tracks and weather can cover them up.
Scat is another way to tell if there are deer around. The pellets are small and round and tend to cluster in one spot instead of scattered around. Deer scat is close to rabbit droppings but a little bigger.
Fresh droppings will smell much worse than older scat. The droppings also tend to dry out after a couple of hours.
Deer beds are places where a deer can rest its head. Sometimes deer re-use the same bed multiple times, which further compacts the vegetation in the bed. Does tend to travel with others and the beds will be bigger, or there will be more of them in one area. Bucks mostly travel alone, so there will likely only be one.
Identifying a deer:
Don't mix up elk and deer — both have made Wisconsin home. Elk have a tan rump patch, black legs and a dark brown furry neck.
Deer have uniform coloring and a white patch on their throat. As the name suggests, whitetail deer will also have white on their tails. Elk have short tails and deer have longer tails.
The antlers of both sweep in different directions, where elk antlers sweep back from the head and deer antlers curve forward.
Drones
In Wisconsin, drone use in state parks is banned, except in marked areas, so aerial photography is a no-go in almost all situations.
Hunters can use drones in deer recovery, but not to help them hunt.
According to the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources, a warden can judge the use of a drone on a case-by-case basis as circumstances can vary. Generally, the hunter must first try to find the deer without a drone, and if that fails, they should have a good explanation why they think the deer is dead. The drone can only be flown during shooting hours and the drone must stay in sight of the operator.
If anyone sees a living deer when tracking down your kill with a drone, do not pursue it.
All year is photography season:
Anyone can head out to take pictures of deer at any time of the year! But be sure to check state and federal park hours. According to the DNR website, most state grounds are open from 6 a.m. to 11 p.m. but hours can vary and are posted at the park office.
There are many ways to shoot wildlife. One way is to go out, track down your target and hit the shutter button at the perfect moment. Another way is set up a trail cam.
The DNR has a program called Snapshot Wisconsin where Wisconsinites can get a camera from the department and set it up in their backyards. Requirements for the program are that participants need access to at least 10 acres, have basic computer skills, reliable internet and the ability to check the camera once every 90 days.
Photos from the camera will help the DNR track, count and classify local animals. Trail cameras are triggered by the heat and movement of passing animals to take a snapshot.
If anyone wants to sign up, the application can be found here.
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