Mulie-Whitetail Hybrids experiences?

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trevj

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I played sneak and peek with a doe about two days back, that I am pretty sure was a hybrid.

Mainly Mule Deer area here with a few Whitetail showing up.

This doe had coloring that I took to be more like a whitetail, with the hair color more brown than the greyish color of the Mule Deer here, but she also had a white throat patch of a Mule Deer. Had the Mule Deer white patch on her rump too, but her tail was...weird.

The mule deer tails I am used to, are white with a black tip and narrow, this one was colored nearly correctly, but was wedge shaped and she flagged it up like a WT will when she was looking about or preparing to walk off. Nice doe. Not upset to let it go, but pondering if it would have passed as a WT once the tail was all that was on it to ID.

Gonna have to figure out how to deal with them, as I figure the WT are gonna do what deer do, which is to breed anything that will stand still for it.

Ran off like a WT too, when she left, instead of the stotting run that the MD do.

Anyone rn this scenario past a CO? Best guesses?

Cheers
Trev
 
That's a hard call to make. As you know, there's nothing in the regs about hybrids and basically the rule is if it is not in the regs it isn't legal.

In the end, I'd let it walk if I was unsure.
 
Hybrids are rare but do occur. We have about half-half MD & WT around here, for instance on my own property roughly a dozen of each are year round residents. They normally don't interbreed even when living right in the same area. From the many hundreds of Saskatchewan deer I have personally observed, maybe two or three were hybrids. The very best way to tell if you are examining a hybrid or not is by the length of the tarsal gland. In f1 hybrids ( first cross breeding) , it is in-between in length. Very very few hybrids are successful breeders, because their behaviour is odd to purebreds. Hope that helps!
 
Typical WT behavior is for the buck to chase the doe around a bit first, as the doe will run to start the chase. Typical MD does don't run, they just stand there and get ready.......
So when a WT buck encounters a MD doe and she just waits there, he thinks "this is my lucky day", whereas when a MD buck encounters a WT doe and she starts the chase, he gives it up pretty quick, as he is not used to this.
Which means, most hybrid deer are the result of WT bucks breeding MD does. Depending on the area you are in and what the regs say, a doe is a doe is a doe............some places have 'antlerless tags', meaning any deer with out antlers is fair fame. So places allow "any deer" tags (self evident).

Best to check the regulations where you are or ask a CO if you don't understand the regs/regs are not clear
 
I wouldn't base anything off of how a dear reacts. If I saw any black on the tail that would be where I make the call.

Remember the only rule that counts, the deer you shot is the deer you shot. The deer that walks is a dear that walks.

you'll never get in trouble for not shooting the right deer
 
Bigbubba said:
Best to check the regulations where you are or ask a CO if you don't understand the regs/regs are not clear
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I'm more than passably familiar with the BC Regs.

As far as the writers are concerned, the hybrids might as well not exist.

If it doesn't exist, it couldn't have ended up in the truck, eh? :) (a wee joke, just to point it out to the humour impaired and self appointed "Ethics" nannies!)

Yeh. Short answer. Has not been taken into account in the regs.

Bigbubba, that sounds about how it plays out in the area here. WT bucks, a lot more aggressive in the breeding chase, Mulies a lot more laid back.

Cheers
Trev
 
Yes I have seen definite mulie-whitetail hybrids. Pretty funky looking. Kinda half-n-half traits of both deer in the tail, ears kinda in-between. Body was more like the mulie body iirk...
 
trevj said:
Bigbubba, that sounds about how it plays out in the area here. WT bucks, a lot more aggressive in the breeding chase, Mulies a lot more laid back.

Cheers
Trev
Click to expand...

In general this may be true, but I have seen some Mulie bucks running full throttle after does in mid-Nov. A pretty cool sight to see, as long as I am tagged out. :)
 
I read an article on North American Whitetail's website a few years back about hybrids. IIRC, some university had a breeding program in place to study this, and only a very few fawns made it to birth, those that were born alive usually died within a few days. Hybrid bucks were much less likely to survive than females, and the resulting deer that lived always took on traits mostly resembling either the wt or the mule deer. Without a genetic test it was nearly impossible to tell the deer was actually a hybrid. Their conclusion was that the chances of ever seeing one in the wild was extremely slim, and if you did see one you probably wouldn't even realize it was a hybrid anyway.
 
Interesting points. Whitetails moved into our area following the railroad corridor and Hwy 16 over the past 15 years or so. At least that is when they were noticed. Much speculation on what the end result would be. I assumed hybrids but it does not seem that simple given the studies mentioned.
 
coyoteking said:
I read an article on North American Whitetail's website a few years back about hybrids. IIRC, some university had a breeding program in place to study this, and only a very few fawns made it to birth, those that were born alive usually died within a few days. Hybrid bucks were much less likely to survive than females, and the resulting deer that lived always took on traits mostly resembling either the wt or the mule deer. Without a genetic test it was nearly impossible to tell the deer was actually a hybrid. Their conclusion was that the chances of ever seeing one in the wild was extremely slim, and if you did see one you probably wouldn't even realize it was a hybrid anyway.
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That's interesting. Dunno what to make of their experiences. But I do wonder what their success rate was with their representative sample of non-hybrid births. The folks that I talked to said the captive breeding of deer was...unreliable.

We have a solid population of MD Does around here, I counted 26 last night, and very few WT. I took some pains last year to whack the one WT Buck that I had seen on any regular basis, there were two WT does at that time that were hanging about.

I am pretty certain that there is at least one young WT buck about these days, and there have been sightings of a larger one a short enough distance up the road to figure it reasonable that it has made the visit here.

Gonna try to get some pictures of the doe that I saw, if I can. Kinda interesting. Does open up here the day after tomorrow, I think. May get some close-ups!:)



Cheers
Trev
 
I have seen WT and MD does feeding together, maybe what you saw was a WT doe.

For hybrids to come about, there also needs to be an absence of older age class MD bucks, as a WT buck will not be able to dominate a mature MD buck.
 
Mig, This doesn't seem to be the case though, the WT are so aggressive as to be dominant in some areas. Where I bought my property in the Kootenays, it's all WT but 30 years ago it was all mule deer, not a WT to be seen. My father lived there for 40 years and watched the take over by the WT, he didn't really even know the difference, other than the darker ones were being run out by the light brown ones. (not a hunter).
I harvested a hybrid in Sask years back, a midsized buck about 145 score. Took him specifically because he was a hybrid, odd deer showing significant traits of both species. Called the COs and they came and took a look at him and were quite puzzled but allowed me to keep him on my WT tag. He was hanging with 3 other mule bucks and the MD rut was over but the WT were in full go. He was not rutted up at all, as a WT should have been. He's 4X4 but there are little nubs on his rear tines (G2s I think they are), that had they developed would have made the classic 4X4 mulie. I'm no deer expert but all veiwers agreed he was definately a cross, even my one cousin who swore up and down there was no such animal, had to bite his tongue and agree it was a hybrid.
 


The two antlers on the left were taken in 2009; the one on the right was taken in 2012 about a half mile from the first two.
In 2009, there was a report of three WT bucks in the area above the Fraser River near Soda Creek. A number of years earlier, a WT shed was found on the range, fifteen miles to the east.
I had never seen a WT while hunting an never bought a tag so this was a first.
The MD buck was with six antlerless, and was shot. As I started to walk towards his last location, the WT buck appeared and was following the herd.
He was also shot so I had two five points on the ground within a minute and 100 yards apart.
The WT had a large bruise on his hindquarter attributed to an antler puncture.
So far there is no evidence of the WT's pushing the MD out of the area but there has been a considerable decline in numbers but I have not seen a WT since.
 
c-fbmi said:
Mig, This doesn't seem to be the case though, the WT are so aggressive as to be dominant in some areas. Where I bought my property in the Kootenays, it's all WT but 30 years ago it was all mule deer, not a WT to be seen. My father lived there for 40 years and watched the take over by the WT, he didn't really even know the difference, other than the darker ones were being run out by the light brown ones. (not a hunter).
I harvested a hybrid in Sask years back, a midsized buck about 145 score. Took him specifically because he was a hybrid, odd deer showing significant traits of both species. Called the COs and they came and took a look at him and were quite puzzled but allowed me to keep him on my WT tag. He was hanging with 3 other mule bucks and the MD rut was over but the WT were in full go. He was not rutted up at all, as a WT should have been. He's 4X4 but there are little nubs on his rear tines (G2s I think they are), that had they developed would have made the classic 4X4 mulie. I'm no deer expert but all veiwers agreed he was definately a cross, even my one cousin who swore up and down there was no such animal, had to bite his tongue and agree it was a hybrid.
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Whitetailed deer are not new to the Kootenays. 40 years ago the muleys were probably at a peak, lots of habitat change since then. I'd bet the whitetail takeover occured after a series of hard winters when the whitetail's greater reproductive capacity could kick in. I've seen whitetail does with as many as 4 fawns.
 
I ran into a hybrid a few years ago in Alberta, just east of Medicine Hat.
I was walking up to the crest of a pretty sharp hill in the coulees along the river. Just as I got to the top and looked down Issaw a very impressive whitetail rack on a lady about 100 yards away, but jhad no shot as the body was behind some brush.
I dropped back and crawled to a better vantage point and waited. The deer finally stood up and the body was pure mule deer! I only had a Wt tag and didn't shoot.

I did call a conservation officer that night just to see. He was worth going back for after all.
What he told me is that in Alberta, you go by the body. Racks don't mean anything. If its a mule deer body, its a mule deer.

I have seen one other questionable deer in my life. That was about 45 miles west of medicine hat, close to 20 years ago.

I don't know much about the biology of how this happens, but I've vseen two that have convinced me it can.
 
I did call a conservation officer that night just to see. He was worth going back for after all.
What he told me is that in Alberta, you go by the body. Racks don't mean anything. If its a mule deer body, its a mule deer.
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And the simple fact is, that the antlers are not a reliable way to judge species, or to determine if the animal is a hybrid, yet many people jump to the conclusion, that if the antlers are not typical for the species, it must be a hybrid. In reality, only a very small percentage of the deer reported to be "hybrids" are actually hybrids.
 
Boomer454 said:
I did call a conservation officer that night just to see. He was worth going back for after all.
What he told me is that in Alberta, you go by the body. Racks don't mean anything. If its a mule deer body, its a mule deer.

.
Click to expand...

Actually you go by the tail for legality....it's the part of the animal that you are required to leave attached to the carcass for species identification. You are correct that racks mean nothing...both for species ID legally and biologically.
 
I saw a set of antlers from a "supposed" cross breed back in 1987. In Langham Saskatchewan. It was ridiculously big! Strange shape to the brow tines, but the beams reached out in the typical monocotimis configuration. (Main beam with points emmiting vertically allong its top surface.
It was 5X5 in frame, and over 200 inches! The brow tines were about 2" long each, but the rest was unreal!
I still have the pictures of it. Wowzers!
The B&C record book would not allow it to be entered because the species couldnt be proven! No hide was available niether!
 
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