Speaker 1: Welcome to the Wired to Hunt podcast, home of the
Speaker 1: modern whitetail hunter and now your host, Mark Kenyon. Welcome
Speaker 1: to the wire to Hunt podcast. I'm your guest host
Speaker 1: Tony Peterson, and today I'm speaking with Dr Justin Brown,
Speaker 1: a researcher who specializes in wildlife, rereterenarian and biomedical sciences.
Speaker 1: All right, folks, welcome to the Wire to Hunt podcast,
Speaker 1: which is brought to you by First Light. You've probably
Speaker 1: figured out that this is not the voice of Mark Kenyon.
Speaker 1: Mark sent me a text last week saying that he
Speaker 1: was attending a claymation course so he can finally make
Speaker 1: a stop motion film about his friendship with Spencer. I
Speaker 1: don't know, man, I gotta hand it to Kenyan anyway,
Speaker 1: He's got a lot of interesting hobbies. Moving on, today,
Speaker 1: I'm speaking with Dr Justin Brown, who currently works at
Speaker 1: Penn State, where a good percentage of the most interesting
Speaker 1: deer research comes from. Justin has studied a crazy amount
Speaker 1: of viruses and pathogens and different game animals and is
Speaker 1: a huge wealth of knowledge on the anatomy of our
Speaker 1: favorite game animal. Throughout this episode, we get into a
Speaker 1: wide variety of topics, but we mostly stick to the
Speaker 1: ways in which white tails have adapted and evolved to
Speaker 1: be able to thrive in so many different environments while
Speaker 1: avoiding predation. Listen, I promise you, if you see this
Speaker 1: episode all the way through to the end, you're gonna
Speaker 1: learn a thing or two about white tails. Justin Brown,
Speaker 1: I'm stoked to have you on, man, thank you for
Speaker 1: having me. So you Uh, I guess, I guess before
Speaker 1: we get into this. Uh, you and I have had
Speaker 1: a couple of conversations, and I've had the chance to
Speaker 1: look through some of your research, and I don't think
Speaker 1: there's anyone out there who studied, uh, you know, random
Speaker 1: viruses in birds and in big game animals and pathogens.
Speaker 1: You've kind of you've kind of covered a wide array
Speaker 1: of that stuff. I want to talk to you about that,
Speaker 1: but first, can you just give the listeners a little
Speaker 1: bit of your background and how you got into this
Speaker 1: field that you're in. Absolutely absolutely well. So, I'm a
Speaker 1: veterinarian by training. Uh and uh, you know, as I
Speaker 1: got into vet school and and started to figure out
Speaker 1: what I wanted to do with my veterinary degree, I
Speaker 1: always had an interest in wildlife and in population health,
Speaker 1: and so when it came time for my senior year
Speaker 1: and you're going out on various externships trying to figure
Speaker 1: out what you're gonna do with your veterinary degree. I
Speaker 1: went to a few externships out west UM and worked
Speaker 1: wildife veterinarians and some of the western states, and UH
Speaker 1: fell in love with the career and and so after
Speaker 1: VET school, I went on and completed a PhD um
Speaker 1: in pathology, which is sort of the study of diseases
Speaker 1: and and and I specifically looked at diseases of wildlife. UH.
Speaker 1: And that include diseases that may be causing having an
Speaker 1: impact on wildlife, or some that may be harbored by
Speaker 1: wildlife but having impacts on humans or domestic animals. So
Speaker 1: UM sort of looking at at how the health of
Speaker 1: wildlife is linked to domestic animals and humans and UM.
Speaker 1: So after that, I I've had a couple of different positions.
Speaker 1: I've I've worked down at University of George's Vet School.
Speaker 1: They have a large wildlife health and disease unit down there. UM.
Speaker 1: I was the state wildlife veterinarian for Pennsylvania for several
Speaker 1: years and currently I'm at penn State in their department
Speaker 1: of veteranan biomedical sciences, and you didn't want to go
Speaker 1: even though you went in uh to you know, study
Speaker 1: veterinarian and sciences. You did you didn't want to go
Speaker 1: the typical route people would think when you when you've
Speaker 1: had that way, you didn't you didn't want to go
Speaker 1: treat cats and dogs. Huh. No, it's probably better off
Speaker 1: for the cats and dogs that I didn't. My interests
Speaker 1: were elsewhere. My wife's actually a companion animal veterinarian, and
Speaker 1: I think I went into VET school and knowing that
Speaker 1: maybe I wasn't going to go the traditional traditional route.
Speaker 1: I always enjoyed population health a little bit more than
Speaker 1: an individual animal health. Um. And I've always sort of
Speaker 1: had been a little bit more like a biologist that
Speaker 1: went to VET school rather than in a pure veterinarian. So, um,
Speaker 1: you know, I've always uh sort of stayed in the
Speaker 1: realm of wildlife health and population health. Um. This this
Speaker 1: is a total side tangent here, But is your wife
Speaker 1: dealing dealing with companion animals the way she is? Is
Speaker 1: she totally burned out on telling people how to keep
Speaker 1: their dogs and cats healthy And I'm not listening. She's
Speaker 1: probably not happy with how often I volunteer her you know. Um, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: I think it's a it's a real thing that every
Speaker 1: veterinarian faces, and and fatigue UM is a real issue
Speaker 1: in our field, and and certainly we uh. I think
Speaker 1: most veterinarians tend to be quiet when people ask what
Speaker 1: we do because it's going to be quickly followed up
Speaker 1: with either cell phone pictures of animals or or questions
Speaker 1: about issues with their animals at home. Yeah. Yeah, It's
Speaker 1: kind of like when you're outdoor writer who specializes in
Speaker 1: deer hunting and you go to a deer show you
Speaker 1: see an awful lot of pictures of people posing with
Speaker 1: their bocks. Yeah, and unfortunately, I think I get hit
Speaker 1: from both angles. So yeah, I'll bet you do work
Speaker 1: in working at Penn State the way that you do.
Speaker 1: So what was the interest though, in you know, pathology
Speaker 1: with where did that come from in your life? Just
Speaker 1: just always curious about it? Yeah, I mean, I think
Speaker 1: with wildlife health, you know, there there's a variety of
Speaker 1: ways you can approach that. We certainly have UM instances
Speaker 1: where we are treating individual animals UM, whether that's for
Speaker 1: you know, a larger purpose like a research study or
Speaker 1: because um for that of an individual animal need um.
Speaker 1: But but I've always had a fascination with diseases and
Speaker 1: how they maintain and how they can impact populations and
Speaker 1: individual animals. UM. And so I've always had an interest
Speaker 1: in disease ecology, and so I just linked that together
Speaker 1: with my interest in in population health and while left conservation.
Speaker 1: So that's that's sort of how I I got into
Speaker 1: the field. UM. But I think I'm sort of an
Speaker 1: eternal student and I uh, I think I'm always sort
Speaker 1: of adapting what I do within the field of wildlife
Speaker 1: health and disease. Yeah, you seem to, uh, you know,
Speaker 1: we're going to get into you know, white tail anatomy
Speaker 1: and their evolution and in a little bit here, but
Speaker 1: your research has covered a crazy amount of different animals,
Speaker 1: mostly big game animals, a lot of birds, and you
Speaker 1: you really seem to have kind of covered the gamut
Speaker 1: as far as just looking into different species and not
Speaker 1: really drilling down on one particular species. Yeah. And I think,
Speaker 1: you know, I think once you have an interest in
Speaker 1: in health and disease, UM, I think it's easy to
Speaker 1: switch systems you're working in. UM. So I started out
Speaker 1: when I was in bed school working on on a
Speaker 1: project on box turtles, and then my PhD was looking
Speaker 1: more at at waterfowl, goals and other alien species, and um,
Speaker 1: you know, we've all I've always had an interest in
Speaker 1: mammals too, So I think it's fairly easy to switch
Speaker 1: systems and and oftentimes there may be an underlying health
Speaker 1: issue or disease issue that affects birds, mammals, humans, amphibians, etcetera. So, um,
Speaker 1: there there are a lot more links between those different
Speaker 1: host systems, and probably people realize, yeah, it's it's an
Speaker 1: interesting field, and it's what what was an eye opener
Speaker 1: for me is just just looking at your published research.
Speaker 1: I'm like, man, I had no idea some of these
Speaker 1: animals I love, like wild turkeys and grouse, and obviously
Speaker 1: what tales some of the some of the stuff that's
Speaker 1: out there that can get them or you know, at
Speaker 1: least infect them and alter their quality of life. Like
Speaker 1: I it was kind of a kind of nightmare fuel Man.
Speaker 1: It was a little bit of an eye opener. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: and I think you know, and we'll talk a lot
Speaker 1: a lot about this, particularly um in regards to anatomy,
Speaker 1: but you know, I think whenever we're in the field
Speaker 1: of health and disease, the approach I always take is
Speaker 1: define what normal is so that you can recognize and
Speaker 1: hopefully respond appropriately to ab normal and and when we
Speaker 1: talk about you know, viruses, bacteria, parasites, sometimes normal for
Speaker 1: wildlife is is even having those things you know, you know,
Speaker 1: so we can have a wild turkey that has you know, nema,
Speaker 1: todes and sintestinal track and and that's not a that's
Speaker 1: not a disease issue. They normally harbor those and so um.
Speaker 1: When you when you start to get into this field,
Speaker 1: there's a lot of work that can be done simply
Speaker 1: on a identifying and characterizing what what what's normally out there,
Speaker 1: even if it's in the absence of disease. So you
Speaker 1: find yourself sometimes studying something just just to recognize what
Speaker 1: the baseline is for a species before you can move
Speaker 1: on to some of these outlier infections or something like that. Absolutely,
Speaker 1: I think I think that is the approach I always
Speaker 1: take because far too often we identify an abnormal disease
Speaker 1: or a major disease issue and we don't have that
Speaker 1: baseline information on what's normal, and so we often jump
Speaker 1: to conclusions that aren't accurate or we don't know how
Speaker 1: to interpret data. And you know, we see that all
Speaker 1: the time, whether it's you know, something like stars Cove
Speaker 1: two or you know, the influenza viruses that we're seeing
Speaker 1: spreading around. You know, a lot of times we don't
Speaker 1: have that normal data to put those abnormal events in
Speaker 1: the context. Yeah, I mean, maybe maybe I'm way off here,
Speaker 1: and maybe I'm biased because I'm sitting here with COVID
Speaker 1: right now, uh, with a low level of misery coursing
Speaker 1: through my body. But it's sort of it sort of
Speaker 1: reminds me of this issue with the pandemic of of
Speaker 1: how vastly different, you know, the consequences for contracting COVID
Speaker 1: have been where you know, some people's immune system and whatever,
Speaker 1: you know, contributing factors seem to just handle it really
Speaker 1: really well, and other people seem to get really really hard.
Speaker 1: So you kind of got to have a baseline there.
Speaker 1: But it's that's not a simple thing to come across,
Speaker 1: absolutely no. And when we talk about diseases of wildlife,
Speaker 1: oftentimes the term that uses is multi factorial, and that
Speaker 1: just means it's not a causal event. So it's not always.
Speaker 1: If you get this pathogen or this bacteria, this virus,
Speaker 1: you get a disease and it looks like this. You
Speaker 1: can see a spectrum of signs from no, no clinical
Speaker 1: signs too, fatal infection and and a lot of those
Speaker 1: depend on various factors. And when you're dealing with something
Speaker 1: like wildlife, a whole host of different things coming to
Speaker 1: play on how severe disease will be, whether it's host genetics,
Speaker 1: habitat they're using, what how they're exposed, and how much
Speaker 1: are they exposed, do they have any underlying diseases, and so,
Speaker 1: you know, as far as studying disease, there's there's almost
Speaker 1: a limitless number of questions that we have to address
Speaker 1: before we can really understand what's going on in wildlife.
Speaker 1: Is there when you're you know, when you're sitting there
Speaker 1: and you're like, I need somebody to hand me a
Speaker 1: sick bird or something so you have something to study.
Speaker 1: Is there? Uh? Is there? Sort of I don't know
Speaker 1: how to put this kind of a push, you know,
Speaker 1: I know at Penn State there's a big deer research
Speaker 1: search program and a lot of the really cool research
Speaker 1: studies come out of there. Is there somewhat of a
Speaker 1: push to study animals like white tails over some of
Speaker 1: the less popular animals that aren't you know, maybe so
Speaker 1: tied into U to us socially. Absolutely, Yeah, there's always
Speaker 1: going to be uh, you know, an emphasis or funding
Speaker 1: that's available for certain species over others. You know, there's
Speaker 1: a ton of work that needs to be done on
Speaker 1: non game species. Uh. And some of that may be
Speaker 1: because it's hard to get your hands on a forested songbird,
Speaker 1: you know, and and so that's that that could be
Speaker 1: an issue. But other other reasons might just be lack
Speaker 1: of funding to support some of this research. When you
Speaker 1: get into some of the disease research, it can be
Speaker 1: really expensive and the costs can build up quite quickly.
Speaker 1: And so you know, if it's an ego dying of something,
Speaker 1: it's it's fairly easy to get funding for it. If
Speaker 1: it's a turkey vulture, you're you're probably looking at a
Speaker 1: smaller pool of funds that you're looking for. And so, um,
Speaker 1: that is something that that we face. Um is is
Speaker 1: trying to conduct research on some of these species where
Speaker 1: the interest and funding maybe lacking. I could see that.
Speaker 1: I suppose there's probably a benefit to an animal like
Speaker 1: a white tail too. Just from the captive servant industry,
Speaker 1: you can you can get your hands on test subjects. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and there's it's just very easy to get samples. Now,
Speaker 1: maybe it gets a little harder if you have a
Speaker 1: specific sample you're targeting. But if you're just saying I
Speaker 1: just need to go out and get samples, but then
Speaker 1: you've got you know, a whole lot of harvested deer
Speaker 1: during certain times a year, you can go out and
Speaker 1: get road kills and sample them and that's pretty easy. Um.
Speaker 1: So detection is a major issue. You know, we've done
Speaker 1: work over the last few years with grouse looking at
Speaker 1: at West Nyland. Some of the issues grouse are are
Speaker 1: are facing. Um And one of the real challenges early
Speaker 1: on was to find sick and dead birds because if
Speaker 1: a grouse dies of a viral infection in the woods,
Speaker 1: I mean, the chances of you getting your hands on
Speaker 1: it are are pretty load and non existent. Um And so, yeah,
Speaker 1: detection and getting samples in hand for some these species
Speaker 1: is a real challenge. How do you get your hands
Speaker 1: on a grouse that died from western ale Ben I
Speaker 1: was hoping you could tell me, because pu you're here
Speaker 1: looks like you got a grouse in the dog's mouth.
Speaker 1: But yeah, I mean that's something we actually worked at.
Speaker 1: And um, we utilized hunters quite a lot. And so
Speaker 1: people that were out um you know, with their dogs,
Speaker 1: you know, working their dogs, training their dogs, and came
Speaker 1: upon you know, carcasses or birds that were down and
Speaker 1: not doing well. Um, you know, those were all options
Speaker 1: we looked at. So that's that's a unique advantage of
Speaker 1: you know, studying something in a game animal. Then you
Speaker 1: have you have people out there who are gonna be
Speaker 1: gathering samples for you for totally unrelated reasons that you
Speaker 1: might be able to tap into. Absolutely. Yeah, And I
Speaker 1: think you know, one of the beauties of working with
Speaker 1: hunters or trappers or or anyone that is is an
Speaker 1: enthusiast of the outdoors is, um, if they're interested, it's
Speaker 1: really easy to get them involved and excited about research project.
Speaker 1: And so um, you know we used to go to
Speaker 1: a wild turkey uh, you know check stations or or
Speaker 1: bear check stations, and and and hunters are always interested
Speaker 1: in hearing about what you're looking for and things like that. So, um,
Speaker 1: it's a nice social component to the disease research. Yeah,
Speaker 1: there's there's a benefit there. Um. Can we can we
Speaker 1: talk about one of the research studies that I read
Speaker 1: that you were a part of, was was dedicated to
Speaker 1: looking for uh better ways to gather genetic samples from
Speaker 1: white deal deer. Can we talk about that? Sure? What
Speaker 1: was the idea behind that? Just just because of all
Speaker 1: the disease study and everything, having a larger I don't know,
Speaker 1: I guess pool to draw from in an easier way
Speaker 1: to get those samples from across the country just makes
Speaker 1: your job that much easier. We were looking UM in
Speaker 1: that study at landscape genetics and genetics UM in white
Speaker 1: tails across parts of Pennsylvania, and so UM you can
Speaker 1: gain genetic material during certain times of the year and
Speaker 1: from certain animals like harvested deer. You could you can
Speaker 1: use hair, you can use tissue, anything like that. UM.
Speaker 1: But what we're starting to look for, we're ways that
Speaker 1: we could gather at without having that that carcass in
Speaker 1: hand or without having a dead animal UM. And so
Speaker 1: we were looking at things like oral swabs UM and
Speaker 1: and things like that where we could sample UM in
Speaker 1: in non traditional ways. But what what's the what's the
Speaker 1: end goal there or what's the bigger picture with those samples?
Speaker 1: I think whenever you're dealing with something like that and
Speaker 1: you have limitations in wildlife, one of the things at
Speaker 1: least that I always look for is you have all
Speaker 1: these hurdles and limit taeans to answer some of these questions,
Speaker 1: like you can only get deer during this time of
Speaker 1: year or from from this type of animal, whether it's
Speaker 1: a road kill or something like that, and and some
Speaker 1: of those may not be of the highest quality. UM.
Speaker 1: So some of that research was just trying to expand
Speaker 1: the tools that we had in our our arsenal. Right,
Speaker 1: so UM, you're not just reliant on finding a dead
Speaker 1: animal or having someone harvested. And by having more tools,
Speaker 1: that opens up opportunities to say, we can now sample here,
Speaker 1: if you can get this, we can use that um.
Speaker 1: And so it just gives us more options in regards
Speaker 1: to sampling different parts in different different areas and categories
Speaker 1: of animals UM. And by doing that, what the ultimate
Speaker 1: goal would be is to expand that sampling to a
Speaker 1: wider a wider area and and and different category of deer.
Speaker 1: Because if you start to get into how can you
Speaker 1: sample live animals, then that can address different questions in
Speaker 1: regards to genetics. How so, um, if you had an
Speaker 1: animal in hand, um, particularly if it was a captive
Speaker 1: or something like that, you could collect a sample without
Speaker 1: having to euthanize the animal or without having to do
Speaker 1: an invasive procedure. And that's that's obviously something you'd want
Speaker 1: over over the alternative. But but where I'm going with
Speaker 1: this is what what's the larger picture usage that. Can
Speaker 1: you give me an example of like why it would
Speaker 1: be why it's beneficial for you to have that wider
Speaker 1: range of genetic samples And in then that case, it
Speaker 1: would really depend on on the question itself. Um. So
Speaker 1: for dear, it's not as complicated because we have our
Speaker 1: hands on so many of them. But if we're talking
Speaker 1: about translocating or moving, or if it's a captive and
Speaker 1: it's moving several different areas, then we can have different
Speaker 1: samples that are available without having to collect tissue. Um.
Speaker 1: If that makes sense, Yeah, that makes sense. Let's let's
Speaker 1: switch up here and talk about some uh, some of
Speaker 1: the history of white tails. And you're you're you're a
Speaker 1: student of their anatomy. Is that correct? Correct? Yeah? So
Speaker 1: I teach anatomy uh here at Penn State, and it's
Speaker 1: always been one of my favorite subjects to teach. Again,
Speaker 1: I think it relates back to as a pathologist. One
Speaker 1: of the tools we use to study disease is knee cropsy,
Speaker 1: which is an animal autopsy where we're actually dissecting them
Speaker 1: and looking for any abnormalities or or things signs of
Speaker 1: disease or lesions UM. And in order to do that, again,
Speaker 1: we have to know what normal is UM and so
Speaker 1: a lot of what we teach in anatomy is what
Speaker 1: are the different tissues, what do they look like, what
Speaker 1: do they do? Um and and part of that comes
Speaker 1: down to again building that library of what normal is.
Speaker 1: So then you can understand if you if you see
Speaker 1: abnormal or disease, give me an example of something you've
Speaker 1: seem really abnormal in a white tail you know I
Speaker 1: can get. I'll give you even a better one. Some
Speaker 1: some of the normals that people think are abnormal UM
Speaker 1: so deer as you you you may know, have um
Speaker 1: hemal nodes, which are sort of these little um They're
Speaker 1: like a lymph node, but they're more related to blood.
Speaker 1: And so there are these sort of little circular nodular
Speaker 1: um structures that are that can be found throughout the body,
Speaker 1: but oftentimes they're sort of in the abdomen and thorax
Speaker 1: along sort of as you're looking up at the spine
Speaker 1: in that fat area. A lot of people think that
Speaker 1: there are areas of bleeding or hemorrhage, but it's actually
Speaker 1: just a little normal anatomy of of deer that we
Speaker 1: we frequently will have people send us pictures of. So
Speaker 1: when people are field dressing or butchering their deer, they
Speaker 1: see those and they think it's there's something severely wrong
Speaker 1: with their deer, and they want they want to know
Speaker 1: what it's got. But it's actually a pretty normal thing, exactly.
Speaker 1: They always a lot of times what we'll hear is
Speaker 1: it looks like there's areas of hemorrhage along sort of
Speaker 1: the inner inner fat and the body cavity, and those
Speaker 1: are just normal human nodes. What what what is their function?
Speaker 1: They they like a lymph node, There are filtering organ
Speaker 1: for the blood rather than for limb. Give me an
Speaker 1: example of something in a white tail's anatomy besides that
Speaker 1: that that fascinates you. I think you know, obviously deer
Speaker 1: now now we can see white tails anywhere, but they've
Speaker 1: historically obviously evolved to be enforceded environments and particularly on
Speaker 1: those forest edges um And So I think what fascinates
Speaker 1: me about deer is a lot of their muscular skeletal
Speaker 1: anatomy UM. So you know, if we talk about deer
Speaker 1: as a specifically white tails, as being really adapted to
Speaker 1: be for for running UM, the term we often use
Speaker 1: for that is curs orel um. And so what that
Speaker 1: just means is a lot of the anatomy and and
Speaker 1: adaptations we see are built so that they can be
Speaker 1: really strong runners um. And And obviously any of us
Speaker 1: that have have hunted for them or even just watch
Speaker 1: them can can appreciate how how fast and how good
Speaker 1: they are running UM. But some of the things that
Speaker 1: they've adapted to allow them to do that are are
Speaker 1: pretty unique. UM. If you look at deer, and this
Speaker 1: is true almost of any sort of cursorial or running species,
Speaker 1: a lot of times what they'll do is put the
Speaker 1: heavy part of the lower limbs up towards the body
Speaker 1: and then it'll be skinnier the farther you go out
Speaker 1: on the limb. And that's really true of deer. You know,
Speaker 1: if you look, a lot of their muscles are on
Speaker 1: the upper four limbs or in the rump area, and
Speaker 1: then they come down and they have really skinny lower
Speaker 1: lower distal limbs, And the reason for that is it
Speaker 1: lessens the weight down that lower part of the limb
Speaker 1: and allows them to just move move that lower limb faster.
Speaker 1: The other thing they've done is adapted their length of
Speaker 1: their limb. So if you look at a deer's leg um,
Speaker 1: we can talk about different ways animals can stand right,
Speaker 1: and so the slowest way an animal can stand is
Speaker 1: what we call planet grade, which is what we are
Speaker 1: right where our heel is completely flat and our whole
Speaker 1: foot is flat on the ground. When you look at deer,
Speaker 1: what they've actually done is adapted so they're basically walking
Speaker 1: on on their tiptoes right. And so if you actually
Speaker 1: look at the leg of a deer, they are almost
Speaker 1: that whole almost the distal third of their leg is
Speaker 1: actually their foot that's now adapted so that they're running
Speaker 1: on their toes right. So it's significantly lengthened the length
Speaker 1: of their limb and just allows them to run faster
Speaker 1: and hold on in one second, So is that when
Speaker 1: when you describe that. Is that just purely for uh,
Speaker 1: for them to be really quick or is it is
Speaker 1: it for them to go from you know, stationary to
Speaker 1: move in fast quickly A little bit of both, so
Speaker 1: you know what it basically the two ways the big
Speaker 1: functions you can are ways you can run faster is
Speaker 1: if your legs move faster and if each step is longer, right,
Speaker 1: And so doer have adapted to have both of those
Speaker 1: one again, they have they don't have a lot of
Speaker 1: weight on that lower limb, so it allows them to
Speaker 1: move it faster and then as a length in that
Speaker 1: leg for each step they get to go further. Interesting.
Speaker 1: I mean, I think that's one of the things that
Speaker 1: always kind of surprises people who aren't that familiar with
Speaker 1: white tails when you when they get their hands on
Speaker 1: one for the first time, is how tiny their lower
Speaker 1: legs are. And you know, when you watch a deer
Speaker 1: jump like a six seven foot fence, it just doesn't
Speaker 1: seem to add up in our minds. It's a different
Speaker 1: kind of anatomy. Absolutely yeah, and it's it's it can
Speaker 1: look ridiculous when they're walking on like a road. When
Speaker 1: you actually see them move and run, it all sort
Speaker 1: of ties together and makes sense. So is there in
Speaker 1: the history of the white tail? You know, can you
Speaker 1: can you go back in time and find an ancestor
Speaker 1: to them who didn't have uh, you know, who maybe
Speaker 1: had stock ear shorter legs. Can can we see this
Speaker 1: this process playing out in any way? Um, you'd have
Speaker 1: to go back pretty pretty far to get at those.
Speaker 1: But there are some subtle differences even when you look
Speaker 1: about look at like the movement patterns of even something
Speaker 1: like mule deer relative to white tails, just in the
Speaker 1: habitat they use. You don't see it as much in
Speaker 1: the anatomy, but you do in sort of the the
Speaker 1: way that they move whereas white tails are are you know,
Speaker 1: built for speed Newley's maybe a little bit more of
Speaker 1: that to to bouncing around a little bit more in
Speaker 1: their their habitat. But are their legs have their legs
Speaker 1: evolved any differently? Because I mean when you when you
Speaker 1: watch those meal dear stot up the hillside, you know
Speaker 1: that's a different gait than a white tail, but it's
Speaker 1: is there a difference in their anatomy? You you would
Speaker 1: you would have to put on your goggles pretty closely
Speaker 1: to see subtle differences in in in regards to their
Speaker 1: their muscular skeletal anatomy. Yeah. Do do the subspecies of
Speaker 1: of deer in North America? Do they all share a
Speaker 1: common ancestor they? Well? I think there are some comp
Speaker 1: you know, and certainly I may not be the best
Speaker 1: person to speak of that, but I think there are
Speaker 1: some competing theories about that. Some people believe they do
Speaker 1: and some people believe they don't. Right. Yeah, Yeah, I
Speaker 1: know there's some some differences on, you know, in ancestry
Speaker 1: between like black tails, white tails, and new Lee's as
Speaker 1: far as how each of those evolved. Yeah, I suspect
Speaker 1: if I guess, if you have to go back far enough,
Speaker 1: you'd you'd figure out where the elk and the moose
Speaker 1: and a couple of other species came from. Too. Exactly
Speaker 1: exactly what do you think? That gets outside of my expertise?
Speaker 1: Nobody cares, man, Just just take a guess. What is
Speaker 1: your What does your gut say? Um? I I think
Speaker 1: they share a comedy ancestor all the subspecies I do too.
Speaker 1: Are you Are you willing to go on record for that? Sure?
Speaker 1: I'm just I'm just a wildlife that I got nothing
Speaker 1: to lose. I guess, I guess it really doesn't matter
Speaker 1: what else, what else about their anatomy is is fascinating
Speaker 1: to you as far as there you know adaptations to
Speaker 1: their environments. Well, I think whenever you deal with a
Speaker 1: rumin in um, that always fascinates me just how much
Speaker 1: they can get in regards to energy and nutrition out
Speaker 1: of out of food resources that we can't use as monogastrics.
Speaker 1: And when you say monogastrics, we mean um species with
Speaker 1: one stomach UM, so it's gonna be a lot of
Speaker 1: your mammals um. But ruminants have four chambers to their
Speaker 1: stomach uh, and it allows them to eat plant matter
Speaker 1: uh and things that have cellulose in them um, which
Speaker 1: is something obviously that monogastrics can't use. If you've seen
Speaker 1: your dog eat grass and it comes out the other
Speaker 1: end looking fairly similar, you realize that they're not getting
Speaker 1: much from that. But when you look at deer or
Speaker 1: ruminants um, they have rumen which allows them to have
Speaker 1: microbes and bacteria and parasites that allow them to break
Speaker 1: down that plant matter and get resources and nutrients from it,
Speaker 1: whereas we cannot. And so that's always sort of fascinated
Speaker 1: me just how how they've adapted to to to take
Speaker 1: advantage something that we can. Yeah, they're they're pretty efficient
Speaker 1: at at you know, ringing the most bioavailability out of
Speaker 1: out of a wide variety of food sources. It's it's
Speaker 1: pretty incredible. Yeah, And and there are subtle differences between um,
Speaker 1: you know, and maybe even not subtle, but between like
Speaker 1: some of our domestic ruminants and and and wild ruminants.
Speaker 1: So if you think of cattle, they're they're considered more
Speaker 1: of a general grazer. So it just means that they
Speaker 1: are obviously obviously most often eating grass and other other
Speaker 1: things in the field, whereas deer um are more selective.
Speaker 1: They're more browsers where they're actually going through the woods
Speaker 1: and and picking off the most nutrient rich parts of
Speaker 1: the plant um. So they're a little bit more selective
Speaker 1: in in what they eat, and you can see that
Speaker 1: in the anatomy a little bit um. You know, grazers
Speaker 1: have sort of that wide muzzle if you think of
Speaker 1: like a cow, whereas deer have a more narrow muzzle,
Speaker 1: and it allows them to be a little bit more
Speaker 1: selective and pick off what they want as they're going
Speaker 1: through the woods. How how do they study? So this
Speaker 1: is gonna be a weird thing. But I got to
Speaker 1: see I guess I'm not gonna say the company, but
Speaker 1: I got to see how a company was studying how
Speaker 1: dairy cows digest different foods one time, and there was
Speaker 1: like a port right in the side of this cow
Speaker 1: that they could reach into the various chambers of the
Speaker 1: stomach and literally take stuff out. Uh. Is there anything
Speaker 1: like that people are doing to white tails? I've not
Speaker 1: seen it there. You're called fistulated cattle, and it's basically
Speaker 1: where they um make, like you said, a port into
Speaker 1: their room in um and then they have sort of
Speaker 1: what looks almost like a cork and they can close
Speaker 1: off that opening to the room and UM. I have
Speaker 1: not seen one for deer, although you know, it wouldn't
Speaker 1: surprise me if they did. UM, But now I've not
Speaker 1: seen one. And some of it may be that the
Speaker 1: rouman in DearS is quite a bit smaller than it
Speaker 1: is in in cattle. Yeah, a little harder to get
Speaker 1: in there and root around. I would guess. Do you
Speaker 1: think that the average hunter really underestimates the diversity of
Speaker 1: a white tails diet? I think so and I think
Speaker 1: they underestimate or or not even underestimate. But um, I
Speaker 1: think it would be surprising for them to realize how
Speaker 1: adaptable it is. Um. You know, we the rouman and
Speaker 1: the flora in it, in dear is dynamic, and so
Speaker 1: it's not like they are getting the same concentrate and
Speaker 1: same diet as they go through the year with white tails.
Speaker 1: Their room in and the microbes inside of it are
Speaker 1: adapting as the plants are changing on the landscape, right,
Speaker 1: and so the ruman can change every It takes about
Speaker 1: you know, two to three weeks maybe a little longer
Speaker 1: for those microbes to adapt. And so as the seasons
Speaker 1: are changing, the room and flora is adapting so that
Speaker 1: they can take advantage of the changing plant matter on
Speaker 1: the on the landscape, so as it goes from something
Speaker 1: really lush in the summer to something that may be
Speaker 1: more fibrous than the winter. They're their room and content
Speaker 1: is changing to to allow that adaptation to it to occur.
Speaker 1: So are you saying that they're they're gut microbiome essentially
Speaker 1: is kind of changing throughout the year to adapt to
Speaker 1: the food sources that are available. Correct, I mean, and
Speaker 1: it happens slowly, and that's where we run into problems
Speaker 1: at times with with feeding or something like that in
Speaker 1: the winter because they're adapting to that high fibrous diet
Speaker 1: and then they're getting a sudden bolus of a real lush,
Speaker 1: concentrated material and and their their g i flora doesn't
Speaker 1: have time to adapt, right. So is that like when
Speaker 1: you know, you take a winner ring heard here, let's
Speaker 1: say in Minnesota, and it's been you know, maybe living
Speaker 1: off a kind of woody browse or whatever it can find,
Speaker 1: and then all of a sudden, somebody goes and dumps
Speaker 1: a bunch of corn out there and they've got this
Speaker 1: this food source that they haven't had for months, and
Speaker 1: it's full of carbs and not you know, not what
Speaker 1: they're not what they're built for at the moment, and
Speaker 1: they get really really sick and some of them die. Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 1: The disease is called acidosis um and there's some other
Speaker 1: diseases you can see with it um. But but but
Speaker 1: it's that same idea, And so sometimes we'll get questions
Speaker 1: of y see deer you know in my corn fields
Speaker 1: in the summer and they're doing fine, and and again
Speaker 1: it's because it's it's the speed at which you make
Speaker 1: that change. Right, So if in the winter, if they're
Speaker 1: slowly adapting over months to that fiberus diet and then
Speaker 1: they get into a starchy high concentrate, is that abrupt
Speaker 1: change more than it is just solely that they're getting
Speaker 1: into carbs? Can I can I ask you something that
Speaker 1: I've always thought was bullshit about what hunters say. So
Speaker 1: you and you've heard this a million times, right, like
Speaker 1: people will say, oh, you know, you shoot a deer
Speaker 1: down in Iowa, it's that corn fed deer and it's delicious.
Speaker 1: And when I you know, I hunt all over, hunt
Speaker 1: big woods and hunt out west. I hunt a lot
Speaker 1: of places where there aren't deer anywhere near cornfields, right,
Speaker 1: And even when you do shoot a deer that's eaten
Speaker 1: writing in a corn field, but you watch them come
Speaker 1: out there, they're browsing their whole way out there? Is
Speaker 1: that bs like the corn fed idea? But when you
Speaker 1: talk about a browser like that, I think they can
Speaker 1: get nutrition in a variety of different landscapes and not
Speaker 1: just the corn um. You know, I think whenever you
Speaker 1: get that high, that that big deer, the you know,
Speaker 1: really well well nutrition and well muscle, and it's always
Speaker 1: going to be a combination of genetics as well as
Speaker 1: as nutrition. Um. And so No, I don't think it's
Speaker 1: exclusive to the to the to the corn fields, although
Speaker 1: that's probably a pretty uh pretty good die form there. Well,
Speaker 1: I mean, they definitely use it. I just you know,
Speaker 1: I hear people refer to it all the time like
Speaker 1: it's a cow that was, you know, And it's just
Speaker 1: you watch them in their natural world, and the white
Speaker 1: tails are just not living like that. They're not going
Speaker 1: up to a feed trough, and it's just seems like
Speaker 1: they're so much more diverse. And that's that's one of
Speaker 1: the things that always amazes me about deer and you know,
Speaker 1: and turkeys and kind of everything, you know, trout everything
Speaker 1: that you kind of start to look into their stomach
Speaker 1: after you you kill them. It's like, man, they've they're
Speaker 1: they're taking advantage of their environment in a way that
Speaker 1: I think we just totally don't understand for the most part.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, no, And and again, I mean grouse are
Speaker 1: probably the perfect for that, right you know, it's it's
Speaker 1: so fun to look through grouse crops. Yeah, yeah, they've
Speaker 1: they you know, we we hunt them quite often, and
Speaker 1: so we but it's a lot of late season stuff.
Speaker 1: So you you'd think, you know, like they're on some
Speaker 1: kind of catkins or something, and you know, oftentimes they are.
Speaker 1: But even then, if you, you know, kill one in
Speaker 1: late December, it's still pretty incredible what they might have
Speaker 1: in their crop. Yeah. Yeah, I love that. My little
Speaker 1: girls do too. When you you know, like when we
Speaker 1: go fishing, if I if I keep some fish and
Speaker 1: open it up, they're always amazed at the bugs and
Speaker 1: and in different things that that the fish eat. Um,
Speaker 1: what what else about a white tails anatomy? What besides
Speaker 1: besides their ability to run really fast and that adaptation, uh,
Speaker 1: and their ability to eat just about everything that they
Speaker 1: can come across that they could digest. What what else
Speaker 1: is there that you just as a as a you know,
Speaker 1: a science person who's just really into them, Like, what
Speaker 1: is the thing that you're like? Man, that's so cool? Yeah,
Speaker 1: I think they're Their senses are always are pretty amazing.
Speaker 1: Again because they've now adapted, let's you know, say, evolutionarily
Speaker 1: to be in in in the forest, and when they
Speaker 1: do that, there are certain senses that may not function
Speaker 1: as well. You know, vision may be poor, and and
Speaker 1: site maybe poor. You know, sound maybe maybe not good
Speaker 1: in the deep dense wooded forests. UM. And so they've
Speaker 1: adapted a variety of different senses to allow communication to occur.
Speaker 1: For the vision, I think what's really neat is how
Speaker 1: a depth they are at seeing at night. And so
Speaker 1: if you look at sort of the eyes of deer,
Speaker 1: they have a higher proportion of of rods in their
Speaker 1: retinas sort of that that back part of the eye.
Speaker 1: And what that allows them to do is the rods
Speaker 1: are the part of the photoreceptor in the eye that
Speaker 1: allows you to see better at low light. UM. And
Speaker 1: they're all so really good. Rods are also really good
Speaker 1: at seeing motion. Right. And so when you think of
Speaker 1: like what a deer needs to see at night, to
Speaker 1: see in dark, to see in in areas where there's
Speaker 1: not a lot of light, but also to see motion
Speaker 1: as a as a prey species. UM. The other thing
Speaker 1: that they've done is they have this this structure in
Speaker 1: their eye. So if you've ever seen a deer in
Speaker 1: headlights and they had sort of that reflective part of
Speaker 1: their eye, UM, that's actually a structure that is within
Speaker 1: it's a membrane in their eye that sort of reflects
Speaker 1: the light back across the retina and it allows them
Speaker 1: to see better at lower levels of light or species
Speaker 1: like humans cannot. So um, they've got some pretty neat
Speaker 1: things in their eyes to allow them to to see
Speaker 1: well even at low light. Why maybe this is a
Speaker 1: really really dumb question, but why why did they adapt
Speaker 1: to move at night? Like? Why are they so adapted
Speaker 1: to be out there feeding around at night? Because I
Speaker 1: know I can't remember what it was, but I read
Speaker 1: a book on tigers that you know, Mark the main
Speaker 1: host of this recommended to me, and they were talking
Speaker 1: about humans evolution and some of the primates and stuff,
Speaker 1: and how how we were like, you know what, we're
Speaker 1: getting up into a tree or we're getting into a
Speaker 1: cave when nightfalls, because that's when the bad stuff comes out.
Speaker 1: But there's other prey animals that are just that's their
Speaker 1: time to shine. Why why is that the case for
Speaker 1: the white tail? You know, and and and A biologists
Speaker 1: may may even be better at answering that than me,
Speaker 1: But I would think that anything anytime they can move
Speaker 1: without um with with reduced likelihood of being predated upon,
Speaker 1: they may take advantage of And so if you think
Speaker 1: about them bedding down during the day and and taking
Speaker 1: a meal and bedding down and sort of ruminating and
Speaker 1: getting their digestion, do they're moving more at night where
Speaker 1: visibility is going to be low. And again, they have
Speaker 1: those that high level of rods in their eyes, So
Speaker 1: if you do have movement in very dark conditions, you
Speaker 1: are much more likely to pick that up than than
Speaker 1: something that doesn't have those structures in their eyes. So
Speaker 1: I think they they have an advantages. And it's always
Speaker 1: gonna be the question of what came first, the chicken
Speaker 1: or the egg. Did they have those evolutionary advantages to
Speaker 1: move at night? Um or did they evolve because they
Speaker 1: were moving at night? Do you think maybe you know
Speaker 1: this is are their eyes better at night than you know,
Speaker 1: some of the predators that they tend to deal with?
Speaker 1: I mean, you know, can a wolf see as good
Speaker 1: at night as a deer? You know, I don't know
Speaker 1: if it can see if one might be better than
Speaker 1: the other, but I would imagine dear with the structures
Speaker 1: that we already listed, as well as sort of their
Speaker 1: eyes being um on either side of their head align
Speaker 1: them to see almost three degrees around them that they'd
Speaker 1: be pretty good um at at out competing them at night. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I guess even if they were you know, had had
Speaker 1: very similar eyesight capabilities at night, if you can see
Speaker 1: that range and your your eyesight is evolved to really
Speaker 1: pick up movement and react to it, you know, in
Speaker 1: like micro seconds, then that's all you need. I mean,
Speaker 1: obviously you're not gonna win every time, but it's going
Speaker 1: to give you an advantage in that, you know, in
Speaker 1: that space anyway exactly. And then you combine that with
Speaker 1: you know, they're keen sense of smell as well as
Speaker 1: as good hearing. I think they've got a lot to
Speaker 1: give them the upper hand at night. Do you think
Speaker 1: the vision is the most important sense for predator detection
Speaker 1: for predator detection detection, um, you know, I I'm not sure.
Speaker 1: I think I think it's the compilation of all of them,
Speaker 1: and it really sort of depends on on the environment
Speaker 1: because you you know, certainly when dear look up, you
Speaker 1: know they've they've they've got that good vision, particularly at night.
Speaker 1: But I mean I think hearing, you know, when you
Speaker 1: see him move those those sort of pinna of their
Speaker 1: ear to sort of triangulate those noises that are coming,
Speaker 1: and scent, which they have a really good sense of
Speaker 1: smell of smell, I mean, I think all of those
Speaker 1: work together. Yeah, they've they've got a few tools in
Speaker 1: the kid anyway. Huh yeah. Yeah. Do you do you
Speaker 1: think there's any validity to the argument that they have
Speaker 1: a sixth sense about detecting predators? Um? I think it
Speaker 1: might depend on what you're calling that. I mean, you know,
Speaker 1: they do have um, something called vom or faction, which
Speaker 1: is sort of like a mixture of smell and taste. Um.
Speaker 1: But but I don't know if I don't think of
Speaker 1: it as much with predators, more of like UM, dear
Speaker 1: to deer communication. Hold on, can you explain that? So
Speaker 1: have you ever looked at sort of there on the
Speaker 1: upper part of their oral cavity, they have sort of
Speaker 1: that little circular structure right where they're like dental pad
Speaker 1: would be, so in it there that's um, they have, UM,
Speaker 1: they have a bom or nasal organ So right above
Speaker 1: there they have a structure that can take in some
Speaker 1: of these scent chemicals and they can process it. It's
Speaker 1: sort of in their their nasal cavity area. So if
Speaker 1: you ever see um if you're like a flaming response,
Speaker 1: where like boxes sort of curl their lips a little
Speaker 1: bit when they get a scent of a dough um
Speaker 1: in the rut. What they're doing is actually a response
Speaker 1: to those chemicals, which is sort of a mixture of
Speaker 1: taste and smell. So that that's an adaptation that goes
Speaker 1: beyond just their amazing sense of smell. Yeah, it's it's
Speaker 1: almost again like a combination of those two where it's
Speaker 1: sort of sampling that um smell and taste chemical in
Speaker 1: the in the air. Yeah, So that like in the
Speaker 1: case of the flaming response, that or you take a
Speaker 1: dough she she walks by, she PE's on the ground,
Speaker 1: He heads over there, he smells it. There's there are
Speaker 1: things that he can't get out of that just through
Speaker 1: taking a whiff. He's got to actually kind of hork
Speaker 1: it through his mouth and work it through that. Yeah,
Speaker 1: he sort of takes it. And what happens is they
Speaker 1: take it and they get it in their mouth and
Speaker 1: they with their tongue sort of pushed the chemical up
Speaker 1: into the romonasal organ uh. And then that's that's their
Speaker 1: response off in that curling of the lips that response.
Speaker 1: So let's let's take this back a second, and how
Speaker 1: how does that tie into their potentially being a sixth sense.
Speaker 1: Possibly that could be the sixth one they're talking about.
Speaker 1: Oh so what I meant by that is hunters will
Speaker 1: often say, you know, I never moved and never I
Speaker 1: never did anything, and that buck looked up at me.
Speaker 1: And people say this all the time. And we've even
Speaker 1: had you know, we've we've had people designed suits that
Speaker 1: were designed to block your electro magnet to signal thinking
Speaker 1: that you know, deer might or you know, other big
Speaker 1: game animals might be picking up on that. And it's
Speaker 1: always mixed in with this idea that they've got a
Speaker 1: sixth sense for detecting us somehow that we don't. That's
Speaker 1: not like that's simply explainable biologically. Does that make sense?
Speaker 1: It does? I'm not sure I I go that far.
Speaker 1: You can say it's bullshit your scientist, Yeah, but I
Speaker 1: you know, I like ideas like that. Um, I'm just
Speaker 1: not sure I have the data support it yet, but
Speaker 1: I'll keep looking. Yeah, so you don't believe it. I don't.
Speaker 1: I don't believe it. Yeah, I think that we look
Speaker 1: for excuses sometimes for the fact that we're you know,
Speaker 1: two pounds and hanging off the side of a tree,
Speaker 1: and that deer knows the entire area he lives in
Speaker 1: so well that when there's suddenly something there like that,
Speaker 1: he suddenly, you know, out of his peripheral vision goes, no,
Speaker 1: that can't be right. Yeah. Yeah. It could be just
Speaker 1: I smell like coffee, well maybe, or or it could
Speaker 1: be just the fact that you're, you know, a full
Speaker 1: size human hanging off the side of a tree and
Speaker 1: they're like, yeah, I don't. I mean, I see deer
Speaker 1: that that spooks sometimes when they see trail cameras in
Speaker 1: new spots. And I mean, there might be a sentence
Speaker 1: component to that, But when you when you see a
Speaker 1: deer react to a little tiny box on the side
Speaker 1: of a tree, it's not that it's not that hard
Speaker 1: for me to believe that. Sometimes they just pick us
Speaker 1: out even when we don't move. It is amazing what
Speaker 1: they can pick up on, right, Yeah, let's react to
Speaker 1: Yeah it is. And and I'm always curious and this
Speaker 1: this is probably probably not entirely true, but I believe
Speaker 1: it sometimes. So if I get if you know, this
Speaker 1: happens to me a lot in northern Wisconsin for some reason.
Speaker 1: But if I hang a camera, even if I put
Speaker 1: it up six seven ft and I angle it down
Speaker 1: to kind of get it out of their sight line
Speaker 1: and just just be less intrusive, I still get dear
Speaker 1: that that spot it and you can tell, and you know,
Speaker 1: you might get a series of pictures of them spooking,
Speaker 1: and if it's a specific buck, I often don't get
Speaker 1: them back there, And I'm always like, is that possible?
Speaker 1: Like are they are they that good at being like
Speaker 1: that doesn't belong here? I'm not going to walk in
Speaker 1: front of it again? Or is that all in my head? Yeah? Yeah,
Speaker 1: something threw me off. Yeah, you know, I just don't know,
Speaker 1: I mean, and it makes me wonder about their memory,
Speaker 1: Like I don't. I don't know if if anybody's ever
Speaker 1: studied that or not, like how how they can remember
Speaker 1: things like that or how good their memory is. Do
Speaker 1: you know? I actually don't. I don't. I'd like to
Speaker 1: hear it. I mean, I don't. I don't know. I
Speaker 1: think of if I've read any studies about memory like that?
Speaker 1: Can I can I ask you something different? Then? Um?
Speaker 1: I was I was reading this is really dumb. I
Speaker 1: was reading about uh space and and the gravity of
Speaker 1: black holes and how gravity can actually influence time, and
Speaker 1: so it's kind of ties back to like Einstein's theory
Speaker 1: of relativity, like how we perceive time is different than
Speaker 1: how time is perceived in other places, or I mean,
Speaker 1: you know, like other parts of the Solar system, in
Speaker 1: other parts of the universe. As far as you know
Speaker 1: how much gravity is bending time, I guess it is.
Speaker 1: And anyway, when I was reading about this, the author
Speaker 1: referenced to to kind of frame it up, said dogs
Speaker 1: and cats experienced time differently than we do and and
Speaker 1: and he put it in terms of like frames per second,
Speaker 1: and dogs actually experienced time slower than we do, uh
Speaker 1: in in this argument, and that you know they that
Speaker 1: that's kind of like his explanation was, like, it's kind
Speaker 1: of like, you know, if you watch a snake strike
Speaker 1: at a dog, a lot of times, it's like their
Speaker 1: slow motion moving out of the way. They can kind
Speaker 1: of they can react really really well sometimes if they
Speaker 1: know what's coming. And I always wonder about that with deer,
Speaker 1: and it like breaks my brain. I'm not smart enough
Speaker 1: to actually understand this, but I think about it with
Speaker 1: like deer jump in the string when you when you
Speaker 1: shoot at him, or some of the ways they react,
Speaker 1: and like are they just experiencing time differently than us
Speaker 1: and just getting out ahead of us and we don't
Speaker 1: understand it why? I mean, I think there is there are,
Speaker 1: there are some studies and I haven't seen him in dear,
Speaker 1: but about like fast twitch muscles, you know, like speed
Speaker 1: and quick reaction times and things like that. Um, I
Speaker 1: don't know if they're actually perceiving it slower. Are they
Speaker 1: just moving that much faster? You know? I wonder? Um,
Speaker 1: But yeah, I mean I think I think definitely even
Speaker 1: from like a muscle physiology standpoint, Um, deer, deer can
Speaker 1: can react faster than things like humans. Do you know
Speaker 1: how much faster? No clue are you going to study that?
Speaker 1: That might be here? Let me just make a note
Speaker 1: here that might be on my list. I've got a
Speaker 1: few things here that sixth cents and and how fast? What?
Speaker 1: What is something? What is something anatomy wise or in
Speaker 1: the white tail's history? That is is the mystery to
Speaker 1: you that you would like to figure out? Mm hmm.
Speaker 1: You know, I don't know if one of the things
Speaker 1: that from a health standpoint is we deal a lot
Speaker 1: with capture myopathy and dear um and that is a
Speaker 1: basically a disease we see that's associated with muscle exertion
Speaker 1: and stress. And so whenever you're trapping deer catching deer um,
Speaker 1: it can be a pretty significant issue that we deal
Speaker 1: with UM. And you know, dear are just wound so
Speaker 1: tight that I would love at some point to figure
Speaker 1: out would there ever be anything we can do from
Speaker 1: a from a handling standpoint to limit some of that
Speaker 1: capture myopathy because it is probably one of the biggest
Speaker 1: things we face whenever again, whenever we're trapping deer, coloring
Speaker 1: anything like that, UM. They just have this high stress
Speaker 1: physiologic reaction that can actually lead to to mortality in
Speaker 1: them UM. And so I think from a functional standpoint,
Speaker 1: trying to figure out, like what is it in dear
Speaker 1: that makes them so stressed and that they're wound so
Speaker 1: tight that that that we have this disease that we
Speaker 1: we deal with UM when we handle them. Do you
Speaker 1: see that in other animals? We do, and you can
Speaker 1: see it in almost anything. We even have like a
Speaker 1: woodpecker one time that uh that they put a backpack
Speaker 1: harness on and that got it. So you can see
Speaker 1: it in almost any species, um, but it tends to
Speaker 1: be in those that are wound really tight, you know,
Speaker 1: high stressed animals, and there's I just don't think there's
Speaker 1: anything that's wound as tight as white tail. If you've
Speaker 1: ever have you I don't know if you've ever a
Speaker 1: clover trapped or done anything like that. I mean, they're
Speaker 1: they're just wound tight. Does it happen with predators, Yeah,
Speaker 1: predator species, like when we're handling them. Yeah, Like if
Speaker 1: you're trapping predators that they get the same thing. Yeah,
Speaker 1: not nearly as much though. I Mean again maybe if
Speaker 1: you had like a long translocation event um, and you
Speaker 1: had something that was a little bit more high stress,
Speaker 1: it could happen. I'd have to go back. I mean
Speaker 1: it's been reported in almost any species. I probably the
Speaker 1: least likely you'd see it would be something like a
Speaker 1: black bear that's just just more laid back. Yeah. Well,
Speaker 1: it's something that isn't under you know, at least when
Speaker 1: they get to a certain age, isn't under a constant
Speaker 1: threat of you know, getting eating or attacked because they're
Speaker 1: pretty confident in a lot of their environments unless they
Speaker 1: mix it up with a grizzly or a bigger black bear. Um.
Speaker 1: That's interesting because so I hunted in in South Africa
Speaker 1: and like two thousand and seven for when I was
Speaker 1: at Peterson's Bow Hunting magazine, and I didn't really understand
Speaker 1: when they sent me over there. I didn't really understand
Speaker 1: how the whole hunting thing worked over there. And you know,
Speaker 1: everything's high fence and there's a big animal trade over there,
Speaker 1: and it's it's a weird deal. But I was talking
Speaker 1: to the outfitter about it because I was just fascinated
Speaker 1: by m. Paula's I thought, I thought they were so
Speaker 1: beautiful and they were so cagy, like if you you know,
Speaker 1: you want to talk about something that would give a
Speaker 1: white tail a run for its money. At least where
Speaker 1: I was, Those in Paula were no joke as far
Speaker 1: as what they would tolerate and how they'd react to
Speaker 1: a shot. And I was talking to him about that
Speaker 1: and he said they are a nightmare to trap and transplant,
Speaker 1: and he he referenced, he said, you know, like a
Speaker 1: lot of them don't make it, and yeah, I have
Speaker 1: never heard anybody say that. I mean, you hear about
Speaker 1: some mortality, you know, post trapping and mortality and white tails,
Speaker 1: but not not framed up quite the way that you
Speaker 1: put it. It's interesting, Yeah, it is, and and and
Speaker 1: so the same exact thing. I mean, you know, whenever
Speaker 1: you're doing uh, translocation or even just handling them and
Speaker 1: putting in collar on them, you know, you you take
Speaker 1: all these different measures to keep them cool because they're
Speaker 1: going to get a spiking temperature. Um, you know, their
Speaker 1: body just physiologically it just gets going, so gets gets
Speaker 1: ramped up, and so um. It's an It's interesting to me.
Speaker 1: It makes sense. I mean, it's a prey species, and
Speaker 1: so that reaction makes sense to me. But it doesn't always,
Speaker 1: at least as a scientist, makes sense that it would
Speaker 1: be so bad that it could kill them. You know. Yeah,
Speaker 1: well that it seems like a weird a weird reaction. Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 1: And it's your interest in trying to figure that out. Obviously,
Speaker 1: there's the aspect of you just don't want your test
Speaker 1: subjects to die, are like, you don't want a certain
Speaker 1: percentage of them to die for you to be able
Speaker 1: to do your science. But is it also is there
Speaker 1: also something along the lines of like you know, tainted
Speaker 1: samples or something like that, or you don't know, you know,
Speaker 1: maybe you're not getting like a true representative sample of
Speaker 1: that animal as soon as you capture it, because it's
Speaker 1: it's body, it literally changes when it's trapped. I'm a
Speaker 1: little bit of that, but I think probably more just
Speaker 1: the survivability, you know, like we put callers. I mean,
Speaker 1: there's so much interesting wildlife research going on, and and
Speaker 1: we get so much data when we do these coloring
Speaker 1: studies or movement studies, and and and I think the
Speaker 1: biggest limitation we have for those right now is is
Speaker 1: captured myopathy and so from a from a health and
Speaker 1: disease standpoint of our our research. Um, I think that
Speaker 1: that would open up a lot more um for a
Speaker 1: lot of these wound up unlits. Yeah, that that that
Speaker 1: makes sense. What one thing I'm always curious about with
Speaker 1: white tails or just you know, game animals specifically, is
Speaker 1: some of them are so adaptable, and some of them
Speaker 1: don't seem to be like some of them play well
Speaker 1: with man, some of them don't. And when you take
Speaker 1: like just as an example, like meal deer, you know
Speaker 1: you can you can see videos of meal deer in
Speaker 1: the suburbs of Denver and in places like that, living
Speaker 1: in people's backyards, and you can see some of that
Speaker 1: interaction with man made stuff, but it's not they're They're
Speaker 1: generally thought of as a species that's kind of like
Speaker 1: likes to be out on its own, doesn't like a
Speaker 1: lot of interference. And then you take something like a
Speaker 1: white tail, and they can they seem to be able
Speaker 1: to live just about anywhere. What why like why why
Speaker 1: is the species like that so adaptable to so many
Speaker 1: different environments and conditions. Yeah, I mean, I I I
Speaker 1: wish I knew. I mean, they really are have just
Speaker 1: filled every niche, right, I mean I remember I was
Speaker 1: out on the outer banks of North Carolina and they
Speaker 1: were they were there there on the beach. You know.
Speaker 1: It's just they've filled every sort of habitat um And
Speaker 1: so I I don't exactly know. I mean, I think
Speaker 1: they can take advantage of a lot from uh nutrition
Speaker 1: standpoint um, And I think all the adaptations that allowed
Speaker 1: them to live in those sort of edge habitats can
Speaker 1: work just as well when they're in sort of suburban neighborhoods.
Speaker 1: Is there a is there like a fecundity or component
Speaker 1: to it, like is there is there just uh, you know,
Speaker 1: they're they're good at making new generations of deer, so
Speaker 1: these adaptations have a chance to take hold, I think,
Speaker 1: I mean, I think that's part of it. Um. I
Speaker 1: think whenever you have a species that that is doing
Speaker 1: well reproductively, um, then they're just going to have the
Speaker 1: baseline tools they need to do well. And the same
Speaker 1: thing with with bears or anything like that, black bears
Speaker 1: at least, you know that if if they can take
Speaker 1: advantage of the nutrition in an area, especially if they
Speaker 1: can can use a wide range of nutritional resources, and
Speaker 1: they can they're good at making more of themselves, then
Speaker 1: I think the default is that they're going to do well.
Speaker 1: I guess that's kind of like what you said before
Speaker 1: with the chicken or the egg thing, where you know,
Speaker 1: it's like if they're if they're really capable of adapting,
Speaker 1: they're going to make more babies. You know, it's not
Speaker 1: it's not necessarily that they just they're just blessed to
Speaker 1: be to be able to produce a bunch of babies
Speaker 1: and then adapt all over the place. It actually probably
Speaker 1: goes the other way more. Yeah, yeah, exactly, And I think,
Speaker 1: you know, when we look at disease, there are certainly
Speaker 1: some examples where disease by itself can impact a species.
Speaker 1: Certainly if we look at something like white nose syndrome,
Speaker 1: some of the amphibian fungal diseases, we've got a lot
Speaker 1: of those examples. But probably more often than not, when
Speaker 1: we're talking about population level impacts the disease, it's often
Speaker 1: again multi factorial, where there's a species that is already
Speaker 1: having issues, whether it's not not enough habitat or you know,
Speaker 1: something else. Then when disease comes on top of that,
Speaker 1: that's when we have a real problem. Yeah, what is that?
Speaker 1: Is that one of the biggest challenges for you know,
Speaker 1: somebody in your line of work, because I know, you know,
Speaker 1: I know, dealing with the general hunting population, it's like
Speaker 1: very easy to try to just boil something down to
Speaker 1: be like, oh, there's there's not enough deer. It's because
Speaker 1: the DNR wanted them killed, or there's not enough deer
Speaker 1: because of this or that, and and it really kind
Speaker 1: of dismisses the amount of environmental variables and the amount
Speaker 1: of individual animal variables and and the really nuanced like
Speaker 1: picture of wild game populations. It's it's pretty dismissive of that.
Speaker 1: Is that pretty? Is that? Is that a tough one
Speaker 1: to swallow for you? Sometimes it's it's a challenge, But
Speaker 1: I think oftentimes, you know, hunters can pick up on
Speaker 1: some of the issues more than just the general public.
Speaker 1: You know, and and and grouse might be the perfect
Speaker 1: example where you know, they were It took some discussions
Speaker 1: and showing them, showing data and things like that, but
Speaker 1: I think they understood that habitat and and not enough
Speaker 1: at least in the east, not enough young forest habitat
Speaker 1: was an issue. But the hunters recognized that they were
Speaker 1: seeing declines at even in areas where there was good
Speaker 1: habitat right. And that's sort of what sparked that whole
Speaker 1: research was hunters being like, I am hunting in like
Speaker 1: prime grouse habitat, and I'm not seeing the birds like
Speaker 1: I used to. And so, you know, once the strongest
Speaker 1: disease research you can do is when you can really
Speaker 1: bring sort of some of these outdoors men and women
Speaker 1: into into the research so that they can recognize that, yes,
Speaker 1: disease is having an impact in addition to some of
Speaker 1: these other challenges that that species might be facing. Yeah, well,
Speaker 1: I want to give you an example that I want.
Speaker 1: I want your take on it, because I know you've
Speaker 1: studied birds a lot. So this this spring, I was
Speaker 1: turkey hunting down in southwestern Wisconsin on a really good property,
Speaker 1: like it's this is normally not like that difficult of
Speaker 1: a place to kill a bird. You just isn't. And
Speaker 1: I went down there, uh, early May should have been prime,
Speaker 1: and I know in the winter there were there were
Speaker 1: quite a few birds wintering around there. There was a
Speaker 1: pretty good wintering flock, and it should have just been
Speaker 1: on and the weather was perfect. Everything. I couldn't hardly
Speaker 1: get a gobble, couldn't, you know. The TROI cameras had
Speaker 1: been just empty for days. And I was sitting there
Speaker 1: the first night I got there, the first evening, and
Speaker 1: you know, I mean that that happens with hunting. Sometimes
Speaker 1: it just sucks and it's just, you know, it's beyond
Speaker 1: me to be able to explain it why. But I
Speaker 1: was sitting there and I was texting my buddy and
Speaker 1: I was like, it feels like I'm hunting in a
Speaker 1: vacuum like I normally, when you're turkey hunting in the spring,
Speaker 1: you just hear this just coca puny of like songbird sounds,
Speaker 1: and you know, if you're close to water, there's all
Speaker 1: kinds of frogs and toads chirping, and it's just usually
Speaker 1: like a very audio wise, like a very vibrant time
Speaker 1: to be out there. And it was just dead. And
Speaker 1: my buddy texted me, He's like, I don't know, maybe
Speaker 1: avian flu went through there, And I was like, no way,
Speaker 1: but but I've never experienced that before. And I know
Speaker 1: you've studied that. Is that is it crazy to think
Speaker 1: that's possible? You know it, We've we've done this a
Speaker 1: few It's a real challenge with with turkeys and flu
Speaker 1: because I think anyone that studies it probably assumes that
Speaker 1: wild turkeys are highly susceptible to these viruses that are
Speaker 1: coming through UM. The difference is, I don't think they're
Speaker 1: exposed as much as what we think. UM. And we've
Speaker 1: done it a few times where we've looked for antibodies,
Speaker 1: and so basically, when you're looking for a virus, you
Speaker 1: can either look for the virus itself or you can
Speaker 1: look for antibodies. And all the antibodies tell you is
Speaker 1: that sometime in that animal's life, they were exposed to it,
Speaker 1: to that virus, even if they're not infected now. And
Speaker 1: so we've actually looked for antibodies just to say, has
Speaker 1: this turkey ever been exposed to a flu virus, and
Speaker 1: we haven't found any um and and I think Minnesota
Speaker 1: actually repeated that after the last high path outbreak um
Speaker 1: and So I think it's not out of question to
Speaker 1: say wild turkeys could be impacted. I think it's just
Speaker 1: uncommon that they would, at least under the current situation,
Speaker 1: be exposed, at least based on existing data. Now, if
Speaker 1: they were exposed and infected, I think this virus probably,
Speaker 1: if I had to guess, would um produce a fatal
Speaker 1: infection and would kill them pretty fast. What what what
Speaker 1: about the songbirds? Same thing the songbirds is a is
Speaker 1: a real question. And again just on that turkey. The
Speaker 1: one thing I would preface it by is just we've
Speaker 1: had high path virus has come through and haven't had
Speaker 1: a lot of wild turkey metality. Sporadic cases but not
Speaker 1: a lot. So I think it might be again just
Speaker 1: an issue that they're not being exposed at the level
Speaker 1: that we think with the songbirds. Again, there's been some
Speaker 1: questions that should we take feeders down? Should we not? Um,
Speaker 1: this virus is circulating now can cause mortality in a
Speaker 1: wide diversity of species, and and it wouldn't surprise me
Speaker 1: if there are songbirds that it can cause fatal infections in.
Speaker 1: I think when you're dealing with the virus, you have
Speaker 1: to say what's the highest risk and right now songbirds
Speaker 1: And this could change because these virus has changed very quickly,
Speaker 1: so this could change any time. But right now, I
Speaker 1: don't think songbirds are the highest risk for this virus.
Speaker 1: Right It's mainly ducks, waterfowl, some scavenging species, raptors, but
Speaker 1: songbirds are at least the ones that historically visit feeders
Speaker 1: are probably lower on that list. Now if it if
Speaker 1: you were in a situation where you had a poultry
Speaker 1: flocked near to you and you're trying to go for
Speaker 1: zero risk or really low risk, I might take the
Speaker 1: feeders down. Interesting, So it's just an anomaly that it was,
Speaker 1: like I was hunting under a bell jar there for
Speaker 1: a couple of hours. You never know. UM. I do
Speaker 1: think one of the challenges we face with disease is
Speaker 1: just what is sometimes the hardest thing to drive home
Speaker 1: to the public is is the emotional parts of disease.
Speaker 1: So when we deal with something like humor magic disease
Speaker 1: and you see dead animals everywhere, that is something that
Speaker 1: gets the public worked up, and that would be hunters
Speaker 1: or the general public because they can see dead things.
Speaker 1: If we deal with something like c w D, where
Speaker 1: you might not see sick animals, you may not see
Speaker 1: dead animals, um but it's more of an impact on
Speaker 1: the population level and more slow and smoldering. It's a
Speaker 1: little harder to drive home that this is an important disease.
Speaker 1: And so oftentimes when we deal with that an issue
Speaker 1: in wildlife, the knee jerk reaction is to grab at
Speaker 1: the short of the short of the the shiny thing
Speaker 1: that's coming through the population now. But but it may
Speaker 1: be multiple things going on. Yeah, well, let's let's end
Speaker 1: on that note. I've got I've got one question for
Speaker 1: you about deer and disease. We've we've talked a lot
Speaker 1: about c w D on this podcast Go I've got
Speaker 1: whole episodes coming out dedicated to it. So other than
Speaker 1: c w D, is there a disease out there in
Speaker 1: dear that you've run across that makes you a little
Speaker 1: bit nervous about the future of White Tales. About the
Speaker 1: future White Tales, is there anything you've seen where you're like,
Speaker 1: I don't know, Man, if that one gets out and
Speaker 1: it really gets going, it could be trouble, you know,
Speaker 1: I don't I don't know if one's gonna they're certainly
Speaker 1: humor magic disease can cause a lot of mortality, but
Speaker 1: we don't tend to see population level impacts. But that's
Speaker 1: something I think that's worth continuing the monitor because as
Speaker 1: as we see changes in where these midge vectors can go,
Speaker 1: we see outbreaks more frequently um. And so that's just
Speaker 1: something that even though I don't think it's going to
Speaker 1: cause declines in white tail, I think it's something worth
Speaker 1: monitoring because we can see these outbreaks more often um.
Speaker 1: And even though it doesn't cause that, we can tell
Speaker 1: disease and dear um. I think one challenge that we're
Speaker 1: gonna have to figure out how to manage is going
Speaker 1: to be uh stars coronavirus in in in COVID nineteen
Speaker 1: and deer. Why do you say that because existing data
Speaker 1: is just showing that high prevalence of deer are infected,
Speaker 1: and so what is the best way to continue to hunt,
Speaker 1: process your animals, and monitor this safely and just be
Speaker 1: something that, just like everything else with the pandemic, we're
Speaker 1: gonna have to learn to to adapt our practices a bit.
Speaker 1: Are you saying that because there's the potential for dear
Speaker 1: to be a carrier and then you go to butcher
Speaker 1: your buck and you might pick up a fresh case
Speaker 1: of COVID. You know, I don't know if we're at
Speaker 1: the level now to say that that's that is, um
Speaker 1: how feasible that is, but said certainly that in the
Speaker 1: grand scheme of things, would be the thing we're most
Speaker 1: concerned of. So it's it's it's too early. I mean,
Speaker 1: you can't say that yet, but there's there's just a
Speaker 1: general concern that deer seemed to be carrying this around
Speaker 1: and we don't know what it means correct the man, Well,
Speaker 1: I think the concern is just you've got this virus
Speaker 1: that we're all have been dealing with and and trying
Speaker 1: to manage for now two years. They are multiple concerns,
Speaker 1: but one being how are we going to manage it
Speaker 1: now that we may have this wildlife involvement, Because whenever
Speaker 1: wildlife is involved in a zoonotic disease or disease of humans.
Speaker 1: It's a control and management's a little harder. Uh. And
Speaker 1: then to you, what, how are we going to manage
Speaker 1: this in a game in probably one of the most
Speaker 1: important and popular game species, m as we move into
Speaker 1: this this hunting season. So this is this is a
Speaker 1: really good example of just pure scientific interest. We don't
Speaker 1: we we know this is happening, we don't know what
Speaker 1: it means. We know it could be bad, could be
Speaker 1: a maybe a nothing burger, but we we really want
Speaker 1: to figure out. I think what the pandemics taught us
Speaker 1: is that we have to be adaptable, and we have
Speaker 1: to be ready for things to change, and we have
Speaker 1: to take the best precautions we have at the time
Speaker 1: that the data suggests. And and I think that's what
Speaker 1: we're gonna have to do with this as well. Yeah,
Speaker 1: well I can tell you I agree with that as
Speaker 1: a guy who's sitting here with COVID. Uh. Justin thank
Speaker 1: you so much for coming on. Man, this was really
Speaker 1: really interesting. It was great talking to you. So we'll
Speaker 1: have to have to keep this up. Well, we'll do
Speaker 1: it again, but really, thank you, man. Yeah, thank you.
Speaker 1: That's it. For this week, folks, be sure to tune
Speaker 1: in next week for more white tailed goodness. This has
Speaker 1: been wirre to hunt and I'm your guest host, Tony Peterson.
Speaker 1: As I always thank you, thank you, thank you so
Speaker 1: much for listening. And if you're looking for more white
Speaker 1: tail content, be sure to head on over to the
Speaker 1: meat eater dot com slash wired. Again, that's the meat
Speaker 1: eater dot com slash wired, and you'll see a pile
Speaker 1: of new articles each week by Mark myself and a
Speaker 1: whole slew of white tail addicts. Or you can head
Speaker 1: on over to our wire to Hunt YouTube channel to
Speaker 1: see our weekly how to content that we put up