If you want to see blacktail deer, watch clearcuts and burns. Logging operations benefit these animals because they open up the forest canopy to let in the sunshine. New growth springs up and deer can find most of what constitutes good habitat all in one place. Remember, deer need food, water, shelter, and space.

Of these, two occur in Oregon – the mule deer and Columbian black-tailed deer, often just referred to as “Black-tailed deer.” The mule deer is larger, lighter in color, and often associated with more open habitats, whereas the black-tailed deer is smaller and darker, and frequents dense, early seral forest communities.

Mule deer occur throughout Oregon east of the Cascade Range, and in summer, they range into the Cascades. The deer rest by lying on their chests and bellies with legs tucked under. In many regions of Oregon, mule deer summer on ranges at higher elevations, then move to lower elevations to spend the winter.

mule deer
Five species of artiodactyls, or hoofed mammals occur in central Oregon. The mule deer, black-tailed deer, Rocky Mountain elk, pronghorn antelope, and the bighorn sheep.

There are two species of deer in Oregon, each with two subspecies. The most common species is the mule deer, with Rocky Mountain mule deer found on the east side of the Cascades and Columbian black-tailed deer generally found west of the Cascades.

GOLD BEACH — General season black-tailed deer hunters will be allowed to shoot single-point spike bucks in Western Oregon beginning in 2020 under new hunting rules adopted by the Oregon Fish and Wildlife Commission. Under the previous rule, hunters could shoot only forked-horn deer.

Dixon, Indigo, Evans Creek, Melrose, E Tioga and NE Powers wildlife management units. Deer hunting should be fair to good in the Cascades and Umpqua Valley. Elk hunters in the Cascades have averaged about 5 percent success over the past few years and this year is expected to be similar.

Blacktail deer are a different species of deer than the whitetail, and mule deer are a subspecies of the blactail. Whitetail are the oldest living species of deer at 3.5 million years old. The ranges of the subspecies of blacktail overlap latitudes, but the blacktail deer exist no farther east than the Rocky Mountains.

Calling is a widely successful strategy for whitetail hunters, and a large variety of calls are available, but blacktails and (their larger cousins, the mule deer) are also quite vocal and respond well to calling, especially during and even for a while after the rut.

Blacktail deer eat a great variety of grasses, forbs, lichens, shrubs, and trees, including salal, Western red cedar, willow, salmonberry, red alder, and even poison oak.

The Landowner Hunting Preference Program (see “LOP” in the current Oregon Big Game Regulations) may help you obtain deer and/or elk tags valid for your property. You also may allow anyone you wish to hunt on your property, as long as it is legal to do so and the hunter has the appropriate license and tag.

Deer Species in New Zealand. Of these species the Sika, Sambar and Rusa deer species are only found in the central North Island, and the Whitetail in the lower part of the Southern Island. Elk, Red, and Fallow are on both Island, although all the species are more concentrated in certain areas than wide spread throughout the country.

The management plan will tell you that blacktails are the predominant deer species in western Oregon, from just east of the Cascade Crest to the coast, and are a subspecies of mule deer, which are bigger and live in the open steppe of Eastern Oregon. Columbian white-tailed also live on the west side, but that is another species and another story.

Western Oregon’s reclusive black-tails live in the lush habitat of the coastal mountains and western Cascades. Eastern Oregon’s mule deer live in the more open country of the High Desert and the northeast.

Life History. The basic life histories of Oregon’s deer species (Columbia black-tailed deer, Columbia and Northwest (Idaho) white-tailed deer, and mule deer) are all very similar. The rut, or breeding season, extends from late October through early December.