Courtesy Photo/Russell Ward
Who doesn’t love a winter wildlife story, reading tracks in the snow, and looking for clues about the wild visitors to our backyards and woodlands?
Seeing deer around New Hampshire is pretty common, but when it gets to this time of year, not so much.
New Hampshire Fish and Game suggests there are close to 100,000 white-tailed deer in the state. When the snow is not too deep, they can survive on bark, twigs, and buds, or by scratching up acorns from under shallow snow.
For several months, deer have depended on that meager sustenance, supplementing it with their own fat reserves stored in the marrow of their bones. Their hides have super-insulated hollow hairs that conserve calories and keep them warm.
But when snow is at its deepest in March, deer are at their most desperate, and their most vulnerable.
When snow reaches two-thirds of the way up a deer’s front leg — its “forelock," as some New Englanders say — deer begin to herd together under dense conifers.
Thick boughs of pine, hemlock, spruce and fir provide a needled canopy that intercepts falling snow, creating a hollow where snow depth is reduced.
The boughs help retain warmth from the day’s sun. It’s a haven for deer on those bitter nights when winter stars are blazing in the dark sky.
Limited by deep snow, the deer travel back and forth on well-packed deer trails and settle into the relatively cozy “deer yards” where they’re also easy pickings for hungry coyotes.
As March snows pile up, it’s less winter wonderland and more “nature, red in tooth and claw.” It's where we encounter survival and adaptability, and the reality of life and death.
“The dynamic between coyotes and deer in [New Hampshire] reminds me of hyenas and gazelles on the African savannah,” says Something Wild co-host Dave Anderson, of the Forest Society, “except it is occurring in our forests.”
Coyotes fill a niche in the food chain that opened to them when timber wolves were extirpated in northeastern forests in the 1800s.
Coyotes are superbly adapted winter predators. When a hard crust forms atop the snow, they can travel further and run much faster than deer, who wallow as their thin legs punch through the crust.
The first victims are usually the youngest or oldest deer, but sometimes it’s a middle-aged buck who’s spent too much energy during the November rut and has depleted his fat reserves.
“In March, crows and ravens calling from the forest floor have guided me to a fresh deer carcass, killed overnight by coyotes,” says Anderson.
As the month wears on, coyotes press their temporary advantage against weakened deer, building their strength at a time when females are carrying pups to be born in early April.
Winter after winter, the “cruelest month” of March for deer sets the table for hungry coyotes. People are quick to sympathize with doe-eyed deer. They vilify crafty coyotes who stage ambushes in steep terrain, driving deer into the funnel of a ravine or up against a stonewall, or along a frozen lakeshore
Nothing is wasted. Coyotes rip apart and consume virtually every part of their prey including the hide and bones.
“Study fresh coyote scat in late winter” says Anderson, “and you will find deer fur.”
The late winter deer harvest benefits other forest scavengers. Tiny mice and chickadees, foxes and fishers, as well as bobcats and eagles claim their share of the late winter deer harvest.
By mid-April, sunny woodland edges and damp pastures begin to green up. The herds of thin deer that survived “Coyote March” emerge from the snowy woods at dawn and dusk to graze early green shoots.
Finally, as the snowpack melts, deer can bound away, fleet-footed and leaping obstacles, once again moving faster than coyotes can pursue for long.
We may not like to see it, or even think about it, but death is a part of life. And in the end, the deer herd, and the forest the deer depend on, is stronger for it.
Something Wild is partnership of the Forest Society, NH Audubon and NHPR.
To listen to the story, visit NHPR's website.