Ask The Biologist

Not a Clue

Not a Clue

By Bob Humphrey

You can’t judge a book by its cover, nor a buck by a track.

QUESTION: I have been scouting the area I plan to hunt this fall and I’m trying to determine where I’ll be more likely to find the bucks. I’ve found some big tracks and large scat, but someone told me you can’t tell the sex of a deer from its tracks or turds. Is that true?

ANSWER: Yes, it is true that you can’t tell, from a single track, the sex of the deer that made it. A big doe will make a bigger track than a small buck, and those old, long-nosed matriarchs can sometimes get pretty big. If you can follow the trail of a single deer, you might be able to tease out the difference, but that can be challenging in areas of higher concentrations.

The front hooves of all deer are slightly larger than their back hooves. A buck’s shoulders are wider than his hips, and the opposite is true for does. If the larger tracks are inside the smaller ones, it’s probably a doe, and vice versa.

As for scat, that’s largely a function of diet. Whether it’s loose and runny, scattered pellets or a large clump depends mostly on what the deer have been eating, and their overall condition.

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