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If scientific research has taught us anything, it is this: Bowhunting has been and always will be a highly efficient means of harvesting white-tailed deer.

By Dr. Steve Ditchkoff, Auburn University Deer Lab

Therexe2x80x99s an old saying amongst deer hunters, xe2x80x9cIf you havenxe2x80x99t wounded a deer and lost it, then you havenxe2x80x99t hunted much.xe2x80x9d Unfortunately, therexe2x80x99s a lot of truth to this statement. Anyone whoxe2x80x99s spent much time chasing deer has felt that sick feeling in the pit of their stomach when they realized theyxe2x80x99d failed in the execution of their shot, and the deer they had hoped to bag was going to suffer and die over the coming hours or days.

What is the true fate of those deer? Do they live or die? If they die, how soon do they die? If they live, how does that wound affect them? Does it affect antler development, or do they have a permanent limp? These are many of the questions that haunt hunters and cause that awful feeling.

If you listen to animal welfare groups, theyxe2x80x99ll have you believe that wounded, as well as successfully harvested, deer die a painful, miserable death. Their propaganda clearly indicates that wounded animals suffer immensely and that the wounding rate of hunted animals is extremely high. Therefore, the only way to eliminate this horrible fate is to ban hunting. Is there any truth to these claims?

To answer these questions, letxe2x80x99s examine what is known about wounding rates in white-tailed deer. But letxe2x80x99s explore this topic based on facts xe2x80x94 rather than self-serving propaganda.

Research History

Wounding rates of white-tailed deer have been a topic of interest for some time, and quite a few studies have actually reported data on this topic. Some of the earliest studies occurred during the 1950s. These studies report data from multiple regions and include data on wounding rates using a variety of hunting tools. To simplify this discussion, letxe2x80x99s narrow it down and just discuss bowhunting wounding rates. I suspect that most people believe that bowhunting results in greater wounding loss than firearms hunting, likely due to the complexity of shot execution with archery equipment relative to firearms. If this is true, then our discussion will center around the most controversial of our hunting tools.

The earliest reported studies on bowhunting wounding rates were from Wisconsin and New York, in 1958 and 1963, respectively. These earliest studies reported that 10% and 7%, respectively, of deer shot by archers were never recovered. Terminology is important here: Recovered simply means that they werenxe2x80x99t found by the hunter.

Other studies in Iowa and Michigan reported similar results, suggesting that bowhunting wounding rates were 17% and 12%, respectively. In contrast to these reports, six other studies from Georgia, Indiana, Michigan, New Jersey, South Dakota and Wisconsin reported bowhunting wounding rates ranging from 3% to 58%.

If wexe2x80x99re to believe one group of studies, then bowhunting wounding rates of deer are less than 20% xe2x80x94 meaning that for every 10 deer hit by archers, two or fewer are not recovered. But if wexe2x80x99re to believe another set of studies, then one out of three or even one out of two are never recovered.

The Fate of Unrecovered Deer

Unfortunately, while the attempts of the researchers who conducted all of these studies are to be applauded, these estimates were ultimately based on post-hunt ground searches for dead deer and/or hunter interviews. We all know that looking for a dead deer without a blood trail is like looking for a needle in a haystack and also that many hunters might be less than truthful when asked about their hunting proficiency. This suggests at least some of these estimates might have some unavoidable error.

But what about the fate of these unrecovered deer? This is ultimately the most important question. Although no hunter wants to wound a deer, if most of the deer that are not recovered by hunters actually survive, then maybe things arenxe2x80x99t as bad as they might seem. There have been a few scientific studies that were able to estimate the fate of wounded deer, and the first was conducted over a four-year period at Camp Ripley in Minnesota during the early 1990s.

Longtime D&DH readers will remember the Ripley study, written by Wendy Krueger of the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources (DNR) and supervised by then Minnesota DNR Big Game Ecologist Jay McAninch and Dr. David Samuel of West Virginia University. The Camp Ripley study was complex compared to all previous studies, and utilized a combination of hunter surveys, ground searches for dead deer and thermal-camera surveys for wounded deer to generate wounding estimates.

The considerable effort that was expended during this study to locate lost deer, as well as the incorporation of new, advanced technology (thermal equipment) resulted in a data set that was considered to be the best wounding data to date. This study estimated that wounding loss (the percent of deer that were wounded but never recovered) was only 13%. Surprisingly, the data was very similar to earlier, and less technical, studies from New Jersey and Wisconsin. If, for the sake of argument, we assume that bowhunting wounding rates are approximately 50% (the upper end of reported wounding rates) then the Camp Ripley study suggested that only 6 to 7% of deer that are shot by hunters arenxe2x80x99t recovered and actually die from their wounds.

Without question, this data is cause for optimism.

Oklahoma Study

While the Camp Ripley study represented the best available data regarding bowhunting wounding rates with white-tailed deer, there still existed some skepticism about these reportedly low rates of wounding loss. Unless researchers are able to monitor individual animals that are shot by hunters, there will always exist some level of uncertainty concerning any estimated rates for wounding.

I was fortunate to be part of a study during the late 1990s at the McAlester Army Ammunition Plant in Oklahoma, where biologists and researchers were able to monitor individual deer. An important aspect of this study was the fact that hunters had to check all deer that were harvested, and because they could enter and exit the hunting areas only through a single check point, we were able to monitor all deer harvested and interview hunters. During this three-year study, we radio-collared 80 individual white-tailed bucks and monitored them over three hunting seasons. A total of 22 radio-collared deer were shot by bowhunters, and 11 of these animals were recovered by the hunter who shot them. What about the fate of the 11 unrecovered deer? This had always been the major question of previous studies.

When we had been informed by a hunter that one of our deer had been wounded, we immediately did two things. First, we interviewed the hunter to verify that the deer had actually been hit by the arrow. We asked questions related to the type of shot that had been taken, visual sighting of the shot, presence of blood, etc. One important thing to note about this study is the Army base was limited to recurve bowhunting only, resulting in significantly slow arrow flights and short shot distances compared to compound bowhunting equipment.

Immediately after the hunter interview, we located the wounded deer via radio telemetry and continued to monitor that animal every four to eight hours during the coming days. (It should also be noted that we monitored every deer throughout the hunting season every one to three days to ensure that any mortalities were documented in a timely manner.) Because of the relatively open prairie habitat of much of the area, in some cases we were able to actually obtain a visual confirmation via binoculars that the deer had been wounded.

Oklahoma Results

In this study, three of the 11 deer that had been wounded died from their wounds, resulting in a 14% wounding loss. This rate was almost exactly what had been reported in the Camp Ripley study. Of these three deer, two deer died within 24 hours and the third died shortly thereafter. Because these deer had radio collars, we were able to inspect each of them after death. In all of these deer, the shot placement had been less than ideal (all three had been gut shot).

When an arrow (or rifle slug) penetrates the abdominal cavity and sacrifices the integrity of the stomach complex (rumen, reticulum, omasum or abomasum), small intestine or large intestine, itxe2x80x99s next to impossible for that animal to survive. What was interesting about all of these animals was that we found them dead within a few feet of standing water (creek, stream, pond, etc.). Gut-shot animals quickly become dehydrated due to their loss of blood volume and, hence, seek water. Because they become progressively weaker by the hour, the probability that they die at that location is significant.

Personal Experience

It wasnxe2x80x99t long after this Oklahoma study that I, unfortunately, gut shot a deer while bowhunting. Unable to follow the blood trail more than about 100 yards, I waited until morning and immediately began searching the banks of the creek that ran through the property. Within about 15 minutes, I found the doe dead in her bed about 6 feet from the bank of the creek.

What about the deer from this study that were wounded and never died? As described earlier, we monitored these deer regularly throughout the year and were able to document a few interesting observations.

First, all of the wounded deer exhibited a very predictable activity pattern during the week to 10 days after being shot. In every case, they became very inactive and did not move much more than 200 yards in a day. It seemed that their activities were limited to their immediate needs xe2x80x94 water and safety. They tended to select an area with relatively dense vegetation that would limit disturbance by hunters, but was also near a water source. After a week or two, their activity patterns returned to normal, and we were unable to note a difference relative to other unwounded deer.

Necropsy Revelations

Shot selection by the hunters was the other interesting note regarding deer that were wounded but survived. Because these deer all had radio collars, we were able to necropsy many of them at a later date and inspect the inside of their hides for scars or other evidence of arrow wounds. Additionally, we were able, in a few cases, to visually see the wounded deer (and the wound) shortly after the wounding event. In almost all of these cases, the shot location was either forward in the shoulder and/or high on the back. These arrow placements would not have resulted in any damage to vital organs. Instead, only skeletal muscle would have been damaged.

What was most interesting about these cases were the interviews of the hunters. To obtain as much information as possible for the study, we asked them about shot placement. In a majority of these cases, the hunters made it very clear that they were confident that the deer was dead and it would be found a short distance beyond where the blood trail had ended. One of my fellow researchers later mocked this common description of shot placement as, xe2x80x9cThe arrow went through both lungs, got the heart and shot out the brain … I just didnxe2x80x99t have a good blood trail.xe2x80x9d

We were never sure if they thought their description would encourage us to locate the deer for them or if they were actually convinced that the shot placement was good. In reality, it was probably a combination of both.

This data convinced me that bowhunting wounding rates of white-tailed deer are far less extreme than what some groups would have the public believe. Obviously, we all wish wounding rates were zero. But even though most deer hunters possess high ethical standards and do everything in their power to ensure a quick, clean kill, wounding some deer is unavoidable.

Conclusion

As hard as we might work on the range and even though we might only take shots that are xe2x80x9csure kills,xe2x80x9d we are all invariably going to shoot at a deer that we donxe2x80x99t recover. Deflected arrows, jumped strings and buck fever are for, the most part, out of our control. What we can do is take heart in the fact that most of these wounded deer will survive the experience and be around later in the season or even next year.

xe2x80x94 Dr. Stephen S. Ditchkoff is a William R. and Fay Ireland Distinguished Professor of wildlife ecology and management at Auburn University.

Literature Cited

Bishop, Dr. Phillip. xe2x80x9cHypovolemic Shock in Whitetails.xe2x80x9d Deer & Deer Hunting. 30 (1): 31-37, Sept. 2006.

Croft, R. L. 1963. xe2x80x9cA Survey of Georgia Bowhunters.xe2x80x9d Proceedings of the Southeast Association of Game and Fish Commissioners 17:155-163.

DeBoer, S.G. 1958. xe2x80x9cLess Waste in the Woods.xe2x80x9d Wisconsin Conservation Bulletin 23:13-17.

xe2x80x9cThe Facts on Bow Wounding.xe2x80x9d Deer & Deer Hunting. McAninch, Jay, Krueger, Wendy, Samuel, Dr. David. Edited by Daniel Schmidt and Patrick Durkin. 1995. Krause Publications and the National Bowhunter Education Foundation. Pgs. 1-12.

Ditchkoff, S.S., E.R. Welch, Jr., R.L. Lochmiller, R.E. Masters, W.R. Starry and W.C. Dinkines. 1998. xe2x80x9cWounding Rates of White-tailed Deer with Traditional Archery Equipment.xe2x80x9d Proceedings of the Annual Conference of the Southeastern Association of Fish and Wildlife Agencies 52:244-248.

Gladfelter, H.L., J.M. Kienzler and M.J. Koehler. 1983. xe2x80x9cEffects of Compound Bow Use on Deer Hunter Success and Crippling Rates in Iowa.xe2x80x9d Wildlife Society Bulletin 11:7-12.

Herron, J.S.C. 1984. xe2x80x9cDeer Harvest and Wounding Loss Associated with Bowhunting White-tailed Deer.xe2x80x9d M.S. Thesis, University of Wisconsin, Madison.

Langenau, E.E., Jr. 1986. xe2x80x9cFactors Associated with Hunter Retrieval of Deer Hit by Arrows and Shotgun Slugs.xe2x80x9d Leisure Science 8:417-438.

Langenau, E.E., Jr. and R.W. Aho. 1983. xe2x80x9cRelative Impacts of Firearms and Archery Hunting on Deer Populations.xe2x80x9d Pages 97-121 in K.H. Beattie and B.A. Moss, editors. Proceedings of the Midwest Bowhunting Conference. Wisconsin Chapter of the Wildlife Society.

Lohfield, M.L. 1980. xe2x80x9cCrippling Losses and Illegal Kill of White-tailed Deer (Odocoileus virginanus) During a Controlled Hunt in a New Jersey State Park.xe2x80x9d M.S. Thesis, Rutgers University, New Brunswick, New Jersey.

McPhillips, K.B., R.L. Linder and W.A. Wentz. 1985. xe2x80x9cNonreporting, Success and Wounding by South Dakota Bowhunters xe2x80x93 1981.xe2x80x9d  Wildlife Society Bulletin 13:395-398.

Severinghaus, C.W. 1963. xe2x80x9cEffectiveness of Archery in Controlling Deer Abundance on the Howland Island Game Management Area.xe2x80x9d New York Fish and Game Journal 10:186-193.

Stormer, F.A., C.M. Kirkpatrick and T. W. Hoekstra. 1979. xe2x80x9cHunter Inflicted Wounding of White-tailed Deer.xe2x80x9d Wildlife Society Bulletin 7:10-16.

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