Facts are not discussible, only the means by which they were obtained. I hardly ever use the word "fact" for there are few, if any. A fact is a thing known. Everything has a probability - even of the sun coming up tomorrow. In natural systems we rarely question this surety of such profound realities as solar and lunar phenomena, gravity, and geomagnetism. We work at low levels of confidence and certainty with almost everything. Deer are a good example of a big, conspicuous animal about which we know much - and almost nothing. We have no facts; deer are a topic for infinite discussions - and some people seem bent on getting their fair share of the infinite.

At Peculiar Manor almost every evening I see in my flashlight beam two to seven deer from the cabin. After dark we often shine a light looking for their fiery red eyes. The reflection is chilling, even after seeing it nightly for months. They notice the light; it does not seem to bother them. The reflection is turned on and off as they lower their head to bite a plant, then raise their head to look in our direction. Eye lights are off as they walk a few steps; on as they gaze at us. The light-reflection orbs are the light-gathering orbs of the night creatures.

I like to see the deer ... but I hate them. They consume most plants that I put into the ground. Many of my plants must be protected by a wire fence. I put a nine-foot fence around our five dwarf-grafted apple and pear trees. They jump four- and five-foot fences as if they were no more than a step at the front door of a house. I considered modern out-rigger fencing - the outward slanting low fence. Theory has it that a deer gets under the fence edge, then must jump. I suspect that fence provides a height-plus-width barrier. (They do not often walk over livestock wire laid out on the ground.) I compared costs of multiple posts (one to lean, one to support it) of the outrigger fence with tall poles and two belts of livestock fence. I chose the tall fence. The outrigger fence is reported to work, but cost effectiveness for materials and time to construct it remains a part of local decisions. I've learned that even though I had plenty of reasons to use a modern fence, to protect my plants, to demonstrate a technique to visitors, and to prove I was an "early adapter" as the extension folk are prone to say, I chose a low-cost alternative. Knowing what was new or what was best, or having gross ignorance of fences, or being illogical was not the grounds for my decision. It was money, and my perceived value of the stuff being enclosed.

The deer are very expensive. Some farmers seem to share willingly a part of their crop with them. This is said of soybean farmers on the coast of Virginia. Alternatively, orchardists don't "share" the form and production of fine apple trees. Anything deer do to them is a high percentage and long-term loss.

Deer damage claims have increased throughout Virginia and nearby states. Deer are legally property of the State. So a grower has a problem. He or she calls the State. There has been of little help. Increasing the deer herd has been the business of the State wildlife agency for 50 years, starting with stocking of deer from Pennsylvania, Michigan, and many other places. It has been a success story that now looms like a failure. It is a story of excess; of not knowing when to stop; of a lack of feedback systems. Feedback systems depend on knowledge, and even though the white-tailed deer is the most studied of all of the game animals, it is not yet well enough known for effective management. This awareness of the state of our knowledge puts potential management of all other species in its proper place!

I use the word "theory" to describe deer behavior to the fencing in the above paragraph. It was loose usage. There is no theory, only an idea, a tentative guess, not even a well-formed testable hypothesis. There are a lot of such guesses in the wildlife business. Most are parallels we assume between people and deer. We call them anthropomorphisms, fancy for "you are probably going to be in error if you continue to operate as if deer behavior is like that of people."

It is easy to be wrong about deer, but they do seem to behave with some reasonableness, meaning some parallels to unreasonable people. They will go into an open-sided shed on extremely cold winter nights. They eat succulent grass in spring; why continue to eat bushes? They flee dogs, but not very far. They are excellent "escape and evasion" creatures. The non-parallels are in eating thorny plants (e.g., Smilax or greenbriar), those with a bitter taste to some of us, and some noxious stuff like poison ivy leaves (Rhus toxicodendron).

Some biologists have experienced the worst case of Rhus dermatitis in their lives after they examined the green pulpy mass of a dead deer's rumen. It contained pounds of ground poison ivy leaves. Knowledge of what they ate came too late. Even rubber gloves cannot protect the Rhus-sensitive person.

The brain cavity of deer is quite small, suggesting little hope for logic, mostly a genetically predisposed big creature that can learn all it needs to survive in about three months with the doe. After that, learning an area comes next. The rest is programmed. The life rules are: Budget energy! Reproduce! That's all. Most deer are like butterflies. They do not live very long. About three years is typical. Some reach 15 to 16 years but these are so exceptional that they are freaks and, as if they were in a tent show, I'm embarrassed to see or discuss them. Very large numbers of fawns never see the second year. There is high mortality from all sides - dogs; accidents; loss of parent (thus insufficient knowledge to forage); loss of parent in the early state of lactation (and thus starvation). In some areas there is predation, but in the eastern United States there are few creatures large enough to be effective. Coyotes now invade the area and the fawn crop will be severely reduced. There are exceptional reports of how deer die - but these too are side-show stuff. The real questions are: What causes eighty percent of the mortality?

If the one buck and seven does we see regularly here at Peculiar Manor produce as expected, we should see each spring average fawn production of 1.2 per doe or 8.4 or 9 fawns. The total of 16 deer (adults plus the fawns) will be back to 6 or 7 by next spring. Some are taken by hunters, say about one-third, or six deer. This leaves ten deer. Another third must die from some causes. Perhaps old age, but I doubt it. Some other causes will get them first. It is amusing to me the frequency of claims of this-or-that road, noise, development, trial bikes, etc., etc. that "drove the deer out." However, no one has noticed them coming in. In almost all cases it is direct mortality - inability to forage or find sufficient protective cover, or inability to produce young as fast as the mortality factors are working.

Some of the losses are from illegal hunting, poaching. The state wildlife agencies expend 30 to 45 percent of their total budgets on wildlife law enforcement and there is almost no research to back up that massive, high-cost activity or to improve its effectiveness. Accidents are another cause of death, especially those on roads and highways. I do not know where the other mortality is. I suspect there is very little after the first five to six months of life. Before five months, that is where I guess most loss occurs. Mortality, thus, is not a continuous thing in deer but both continual and continuous. An "average annual mortality" is almost meaningless for it does not address the relevant part of the population that can vary ... or the relevant part of the year.

We know so much and so little. We should become more humble with each discovery. Each discovery advances knowledge of our ignorance. So it is with deer. We desperately need to know the white-tailed deer. It is now a major pest of crops, horticulture and nursery efforts, and orchards. It is a major forest pest and in some areas it is so abundant that the very age structure, as well as species structure of the entire hardwood forest, will be determined by deer, not foresters. What species that deer allow to regenerate in forest after it is cut will be the new forest. Deer have reportedly killed 90 percent of new tree stock planted in some areas. Thus, only natural regeneration is cost-feasible.

In Virginia, for example, 110,000 deer are reported as legally taken each year by hunters (more deer taken than sheep existing in the state). This represents a major activity of the state wildlife agency, represents major license sales, and thus support for agency programs. Deer hunting is the major seasonal recreation in some regions and the influx of hunters for food, lodging, and services is the major economic base of some small communities. The importance of deer demands sophisticated management.

On the 20 acres here at Peculiar Manor, I could have 2,000 deer - each in a zoo cage! But, that is not what most people think of when they hear of deer herd management. The connotation is wild deer. I would assert (and demonstrate) all of my hypothetical 2,000 deer are wild. (No one would casually enter any cage with a buck.) Claims would persist until finally someone would clarify the context and the objectives of managing a herd of free-ranging wild deer. The reasons for managing a herd may eventually be decided. It will probably be expressed in some weighted mix of items from a list of potential wildlife resource objectives, such as:

1. Maximizing sightings by the public.
2. Maximizing biomass.
3. Maximizing numbers taken by hunters.
4. Maximizing trophy bucks taken by hunters.
5. Maximizing meat used by hunters.
6. Maximizing reported successful (multiple-criteria) hunts.
7. Maximizing quality meat taken in high quality - hunts.
8. Stabilizing deer-based community economics.
9. Minimizing real reported monetary losses caused by deer.
10. Maximizing the number of deer (any size or characteristics).
11. Maximizing the number of the public that at least sees one deer per year.
12. Minimizing deer that are crippled and not recovered during hunting season.
13. Maximizing the number of deer hunters.

I have a list of 40 such objectives. Depending on those selected and the weights assigned, very different management programs can result.

Objective "4" above requires some of the most thoughtful management. We may not yet have an appropriate theory of horn and antler production. A few years ago in Gujurat, India, I watched blackbucks in the open grassland. The blackbuck, Antelope cervicapra Rajputanae, is a deer-size animal with long straight horns that have a spiral. The males are black and the females are tan. The males defend an area in the open. The temperature reaches 120 degrees F frequently. How can they stay cool, regulate their heat, engage in breeding, drive off competitors, and flee predators? They obviously have done so for years. They are now endangered, not by heat, but by humans.

I had recently read Callaghan's (1975) remarkable book on insect biophysics. He presented a plate showing the many types of insect antennae. Here in India was an image from the plate ... a spiral cone. In the insect world, the antennae are ion receptors, electrostatically charged. Depending on conditions, for each insect, the antennae are fit for capturing sex odors (pheromones) or food odors. The spiral of the antenna sets up a small wind current; the immobile insect in a low-wind place needs all of the biomechanical help it can get to gain communication. The spiral produces a current of air - slow of course, but everything needs to be re-cast for scale and configuration if new phenomena are to be found.

Suppose the blackbuck has a current of wind, self-generated, around its horns. Further study revealed that nerve tissue is much more sensitive to heat than is muscle tissue. The antelope needs to keep its brain cool! There is little water; panting, effective for cooling the hound dog, can be disastrous for the antelope in the desert. The blackbuck, I hypothesize, maintains a blood-cooled radiator to regulate its brain temperature.

What of deer in Virginia? They do not have horns, but antlers. Antlers are lost each year. Horns are permanent and have blood vessels running far up into them from the head. The deer is in the "velvet," a fuzzy skin covering the antlers, for a part of each year. They rub it off each summer. The velvet is richly endowed with blood vessels. The "trophy" head, with its polished antlers, no velvet, is present in the fall and winter. The deer also has a blood-cooled frame, exposing a large surface area to keep the brain cool. Cooling off in summer, at least for neural tissue, is probably more important than keeping warm in winter. Study after study has shown that antlers are rarely used in fights, or if so, the use is rarely damaging. Flight is for survival against predators, not fight. The antlers and horns are used in many ways but in the final accounting, my analysis is that over the eons they are for cooling.

What of the females? They have no antlers! They are of different size than the males, and color and the activity of defending area does not exist. They can move to cool areas and adapt other brain-cooling strategies. As I consider hippos (they are water-cooled as are water buffalo, partially); rabbits (air-cooled ears); mountain goats (a cool environment with low surface requirement) ... and others. My hypothesis seems to fit. The many shapes and sizes of horns are positive fits of a combination of long-term summer temperature maxima, to food consumed, to behavior. The variety may also be an expression of a difference that hasn't yet been wiped out (selected against) ... each of value, the differences of no superior value, each just a mutant in danger.

Some of my students say "interesting; so what?" I want to admit I do not really know, yet. The "so what?" is of understanding horns and antlers better, seeing them as not different but similar forms doing the same function. The "so what?" is having seen for the first time the difference in heat susceptibility of neural compared to muscle temperature. It suggests why some animals can survive in an area, others cannot (Chapter 6). The real "so what" is personal, the pure job of putting a big piece in a jigsaw puzzle at the cabin at Christmastime. There may just be a general system theory ... union of ionic forces and insect antennae with evolutionary theory, ungulate behavior, metabolic and behavioral energy loss, spatial thermal dynamics, and the biochemistry of nerve tissue. Maybe there is just the flood of emotion in seeing a set of antlers and feeling the extra pleasure of comprehending what might be behind that beautiful mystery.

The manager has to know the deer, the potential users and their objectives, and the environment. All three must be unified into a system if any sense is to be made of this extremely complex, poorly known, variable, and changing mess.

I think there should be and can easily be a half-dozen computer systems to help manage deer herds. All overlap somewhat. They include: multi-state or regional and state-level (mostly for commissioners and high-level summary and overview analyses; at least a county system with summaries); (2) regional (for planning district commissions, biologists responsible for regions of several counties, law enforcement officers' regions, and other large sub-units of a state); (3) special wildlife areas (refuges, sanctuaries, and high-intensity management and demonstration areas, e.g., Havens Wildlife Management area); (4) land owner (detailed managerial aids for the owner of land who wishes to manage deer, e.g., hunt clubs, corporate owners, large farms); (5) damage analyses (an aid to evaluating reported deer damage claims); and (6) action impact assessment (a simulator describing changes in deer and objectives achieved if action X is carried out (e.g., building a power line or clear cutting timber from 50 acres).

Here is not the place for describing each system but it needs to be clear that by designing these six systems, then there can be synergistic and additive effects of each on all. The same data can be used for many. Efficiencies can be experienced at the regional level where biologists-managers have "hands-on" control of the data and systems' uses.

The power of the proposed computer systems is not in their speed or fancy equations. It is in transferability and continual improvement. Mangers change at surprisingly rapid rates (seen only in hindsight; as a young manager I saw it as a slow process). They retire, die, move, take new jobs, and are transferred. With each move, enormous data loss occurs; knowledge is rarely transferred. Or course, no one wants to save bad ideas, or pass on sub-optimal policy, but I am trying to suggest high quality, well-documented systems that use data in appropriate ways. I would expect a new, fast computation of an equation that now exists. I would expect an edited paragraph to replace one interpreting a reported statistic. I would expect an updated version of what to plant for deer, a revision of information about salt licks, a new coefficient for the available energy in certain food types - but these are all in the same system. The system is permanent, fixed, loaded with site-specific data. The equations were hard-won at great cost, but they can now replace hours of tedious field work because relationships have been studied and are now included in the systems.

Discussing deer is fun. It is like the weather; a nearly risk-free discussion, and almost everyone has an opinion. My contention is that we need big, elaborate systems to help us pull together all of the things we do know about deer, their environment, and users. We need to use the knowledge we have about objectives and what people want and how to express it. We have to look at how people change in their attitudes toward deer (don't people change with age, a type of psychological succession?). We know something about how deer food changes as a forest gets older - but the knowledge is not site-specific enough. We need to get computer help in estimating the effects two or three years later of a good mast (acorns) crop or a crop failure. We can say there are going to be effects and add "good" or "bad" but these can be and need to be studied and made precise.

In some previous work with a student we discovered that to produce deer with very large antlers, you need to close the season every other year. It was counter to our intuition. It is very easy to make decisions about such a complex problem that are OK, but not optimal.