Mature Whitetails have Learned???

I was reading the August 2005 issue of one of the deer hunting periodicals to which I subscribe and was shocked to read, "Mature whitetails have learned that hiding is a better survival technique than fleeing". It has always amazed me how stupid some hunters are when describing the behavior of whitetail deer, especially mature buck behavior.

It is my opinion that mature whitetail bucks act mostly on instinct, which is an inborn pattern of behavior or response to specific environmental stimuli. Whitetails don’t have to learn to hide; their natural behavior is to bed-down in the morning and sleep until dusk. Whitetail bucks don’t have the brain capacity to learn about various survival techniques. They don’t have enough grey matter to calculate risk assessment in a survival situation. They don’t think about it and decide that hiding is better than fleeing. It’s called instinct!

Obviously, we will have more to follow on this topic soon … b--->