Mule Deer Fanatic

Doe : buck ratios are interesting to mull over.  In white-tailed deer, the fawn/doe ration is a little bit higher, on average, than that for mule deer – 1.3 – 1.7'ish compared to somewhere around .9 – 1.0 or so for mulies.  However, the SEX ratio at birth is very similar, being almost 1 : 1, favoring males.  In whitetails, the sex ratio cannot biologically become as skewed as many hunters complain about.  For example, lets just say that before a hunting season there are 100 bucks and 300 does, a buck : doe ration of 1:3 (not accounting for ALL antlerless deer, i.e. does and fawns). Then lets say that all of the bucks are killed after breeding.  This would leave a post-hunt population of 300 does.  Those 300 does would drop, on average, about 450 fawns.  A little more than half would be buck fawns and a little less than half would be doe fawns.  This would give us a pre-hunt population the next fall (admittedly not accounting for over-summer losses) of 750 deer, of which about 230 would be bucks and 520 would be fawns.  Mule deer sex ratios work out about the same, albeit at lower productivity levels.  Just something to chew on….