Deer Hearing: What Hunters Should Know
A few weeks ago I wrote a column about vision in deer which explained in simple terms about how deer see in their environment. What a deer sees and what we humans see are somewhat different.
That’s not the case when it comes to deer hearing. Deer do not have super hearing abilities, basically their hearing is on par with most human ears. About the only advantage to us is they can rotate their ears to help zoom in on sounds without having to move their head.
Scientific tests have proven a person with normal hearing ability and deer with normal hearing ability can generally hear the same types of sounds and at the same sound levels.
Not so with all animals.
For instance, we’ve all heard of dog whistles that tweet at a frequency undetectable by humans but easily heard by dogs. Dogs, cats, elephants and other animals can also hear much weaker sounds even at frequencies we both can hear.
That doesn’t mean deer don’t depend on their hearing as defensive weapons. They do; in fact, deer hearing is probably as important as it’s sighting ability.
Deer are instinctively wary of humans, even if they have never or seldom encountered a human. However, when a deer does encounter a human, they gain learned knowledge of human behavior. The more interaction, the more learning it gets and the more the deer relies on what it has learned to be aware when a human is near. Most of a deer’s hearing defense is learned. They aren’t born knowing what humans sound like, but they quickly learn the sounds humans make.
A young deer, yet to have gone through a hunting season, even in our area may have had very few encounters with humans before the actual season. However, deer who have survived a hunting season or more, become more educated each year, and more adept at being evasive.
The point is, deer - especially the older deer most hunters would like to harvest - are the best at detecting and heeding their “man-danger” alarms. So let’s examine, from a deer’s perspective, what sort of man-sounds triggers those warnings.
All animals make some amount of noise. I’ve heard mice scurrying around under a layer dry leaves, squirrel claws doing nothing more than being used to grip and climb the side of a tree, birds flitting, bees buzzing and any number of other noises that sound out in an otherwise quiet woods. For the most part these noises are quiet noises. These and even louder-sounding noises, such as the raucous call of blue jays or woodpeckers pounding on trees, are natural noises - noises deer hear all the time and generally recognize as non-threatening.
Humans make it easy for them. Humans tend to be extra noisy.
It often starts at the hunter’s vehicle. Deer often hear traffic near their home territory. They get used to vehicles driving past but how often does the vehicle stop next to “their” woods? How often do they hear car doors slam or tailgates drop? Not often, and when other man-made clues occur soon after, even distant sounds like that can put them on instant alert in the future.
Some hunters even unload ATVs, to drive and park at or near their hunting area. What’s that got to sound like to an already alert deer?
Even walking hunters sound like “walking hunters” to deer. Walking hunters almost always stride along purposely, making crunching sounds as they walk through dry leaves or crop stubble, create whisking sounds as they move through taller grass and plodding sounds on mostly bare trails and at a steady pace as they go from point A to B.
Hunters aren’t going to be perfectly silent but should work towards two objectives. Be as quiet as possible from the minute you park your car and minimize, as much as possible, sounding like a human in the woods the closer you get to your hunting spot.