I’ve heard it many times that an average buck’s home range is about 1 square mile in size. And I’ve said it myself, because it’s basically true. But I rarely get asked about female deer.
If you have been following this blog, however, you know that some bucks can have really small home ranges in September. And once the rut begins those same deer can really travel.
So what is the difference in home range size between buck and doe, and how does that change over the months? Here I summarize some of our data and show you average home range size, for buck and doe. Also, we look to see if home range size during just the day differs much from all locations.
September and October
The rut gets going in mid-October so you would expect the home range of bucks to increase between those two months. And you would be right.
What’s interesting is that from September to October the average buck home range increases 55% in area. From almost 400 acres to just under a square mile (1 sq. mile = 640 acres). How about that? That square mile rule-of-thumb is right on!
But female home ranges actually shrink from 400 acres to under 200 acres. A 48% decline in area.
There’s little difference between daytime and all locations.
November
The rut makes November a different story. Buck home ranges explode and are nearly three times larger and average almost 3 square miles in size (3 sq. miles = 1,920 acres)! And 3 square miles is the average – one of our male had a home range of 4 square miles! So much for that 1-square-mile rule of thumb.
And female home ranges increase to an average of 255 acres.
Think about this. That buck with a 4-square-mile home range encompassed the equivalent home ranges of more than 10 females. I’d say he had good breeding potential!
For both buck and doe their home range is slightly larger in the daytime than nighttime, but not by much.
December
It’s not the rut anymore. Home ranges are right back where they were in September and October. Males are about 1 square mile and females are about 200 acres.
If you read our posts about movements during the rifle season for females or males, you might expect the average daytime home range to be smaller. It is for males, but I can’t explain the slight increase for females.
The Deer Rifle Season
This is where it gets interesting. Of course, the rifle season is only 2 weeks long so you would expect the home range to be smaller just because it’s only a partial month.
But home ranges are half their size – they shrink 60% for males and 48% for females.
And look at this – both buck and doe home ranges shrink to about 100 acres during daytime (the two points don’t even separate on the graph because they’re almost identical)! Of course, if you watched the movies from the rifle season in our previous posts this makes perfect sense.
Rule of Thumb?
Before you leave thinking a square mile for a buck (except in the rut) is a good rule of thumb, let me warn you! The deer we are studying all live in large tracts of contiguous forest and they are quite different from other parts of the state. We’ll show you how different (and explain why) in an upcoming post.
-Duane Diefenbach
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