Native Americans and the White-tailed Deer

I've been doing my Native Americans and the White-tailed Deer program a lot recently. In this program I show students how the Eastern Woodland Indians used the white-tailed deer (Odocoileus virginianus) in one way or another for food, clothing, tools, toys, musical instruments, ornaments and jewelry. I'm grateful to Larry Montalto and Jeff Gottlieb for their help with research and materials. An outstanding resource that Larry shared with me is the book "Primitive Technology: A Book of Earth Skills" edited by David Wescott.

Larry tells me that he has found over 60 things made from or with deer parts. See a link I found to a cool poster that depicts some of these items and where they come from in the deer.

At the Jefferson Elementary School in Rotterdam Amanda in Mrs. Hemphill’s class came up with some questions that she sent me. Here are my answer that I shared with her and her classmates.

How many babies do they have? They usually have two babies. Sometimes they have only one and every now and then they might have triplets.

How long do they live? Deer can live to about 10-12 years of age but that is very unusual for wild deer. Females live longer than males. It would not be unusual for a female to reach 7 or 8 years old. Males usually only get to be only 3 to 5 years old. Many male deer get hit by cars as they run around chasing after female deer in the fall. They also spend so much time chasing females that they don’t eat enough to build up fat for the winter. If it is a very snowy winter they might not survive.

What does they foot print look like? I down loaded this from the internet.

How many white-tailed deer are there? The number of white-tailed deer in Pennsylvania is estimated at about 1,500,000.

What are their enemies? Man is the biggest predator of the deer which includes deer that are hunted and deer that are killed by cars and trucks. Coyotes and bobcats will also prey on deer, especially young deer and deer in winter when there is deep snow.

Are some of them friendly? Deer are wild animals and even if they seem friendly can be dangerous, especially during the fall mating season.

You can learn more about deer online or by getting books at the library. Deer are one of the most studied wild mammals so there is a lot of information about them available.