How to Track Deer

Video Transcript

"Hi we’re Nick and Valerie Wisniewski on behalf of Expert Village.com. We would like to talk to you about white tail deer tracks a little bit and for information, please check our website at www.walnuthilltracking.com. The whitetail deer is a member of the deer family which includes moose as well and they are in order artiodactyla, two toed. What we have here is fairly typical pattern where a whitetail deer the hind foot has landed on the top of almost nearly off to the side a little bit this case the front foot. When the deer is moving it can move surprisingly accurately in what we call a direct register pattern. So on the ground we’ve got some tracks laid out here for us and each one of these imprints on the ground is actually 2 feet landing in exactly the same place a direct register. Many animals direct register. The deer does this when it is walking. When it trots the stride lengthens out greatly and the trail width becomes even more narrow. This particular section of trail that we’ve laid down here is interesting because it’s almost exactly the same measurements as you would get for an eastern coyote. The strides are about 21 inches between foot falls and the trail width or how wide the trail is, the straddle is about 5 to 5 ½ inches and this could match the trail of an eastern coyote foot for foot. In deep fluffily snow where the snow does not take the impression of a track very well, you will often be tracking a deer for many miles and suddenly you will have a trail that veers off and you will realize it that there was a coyote or even a pair of coyotes landing in almost same foot falls as the deer. This can also happen with bobcats when they are tracking whitetail deer as well."