Hybrid - Mule & Whitetail Deer

What is unique about the photo is that the one on the left is a hybrid, a cross between a mule deer and a white-tailed deer. It has the ears of the mule deer and the tail shape of a whitetail. Because of the differences in breeding behaviour (white-tailed does generally must be chased by rutting bucks, whereas mule deer does are much less elusive) mating is more likely to occur between mule deer does and white-tailed bucks. The offspring will generally herd and mate with the mule deer so after a few generations the white-tailed deer characteristics will be eliminated.
In the upper Columbia Valley, British Columbia - the mule deer are usually found on the bench lands while the white-tailed deer occupy the valley bottoms.

In the late-1980s, Dr. Valerius Geist, professor of environmental sciences at the University of Calgary, set out to discover why mule deer and whitetails seem incapable of coexisting. His eight-year study revealed that one-way hybridization is the likely culprit. According to Dr. Geist's findings, when whitetail bucks breed mule deer does, the offspring lack the survival instincts of either species and thus are unable to cope in the wild. "Mule deer and whitetail deer have completely different escape strategies," explains Dr. Geist. "A mule deer usually reacts to danger from a great distance, fleeing at the first sign of trouble. When threatened, a mule deer throws obstacles at its pursuer, running uphill or bounding over trees and brush. "A whitetail, on the other hand, usually remains calm, sitting out a threat until the last possible moment, then flushing like a rooster pheasant racing away on a fairly straight line, using speed rather than obstacles to put distance between itself and a predator." Hybrids produced by a whitetail buck and mule deer doe don't demonstrate
either of these escape strategies. In fact, hybrid fawns seem to inherit a fatal blend of survival techniques that turn them into "sitting ducks."

Publicado el 22 de noviembre de 2019 a las 12:01 AM por larryhalverson