The Farmland: White-Tailed Deer Traditional Cache

The white-tailed deer is one of Minnesota's most popular big game animals. It is found in every Minnesota county and adapts well to most surroundings. Whitetails have an excellent sense of smell and hearing. When alarmed, whitetails fan their ears and raise their tails, as though raising a white flag. This is a signal to other deer that danger is nearby.

Identification

General description: The whitetail is a large brown or gray mammal that has a white tail it lifts and waves when alarmed and running.
Length: Whitetails are 4 to 6 feet long, have a 6- to 12-inch tail and stand 2 to 3 feet tall.
Weight: Males weigh 100 to 300 pounds; females weigh 85 to130 pounds.
Color: Reddish brown in summer and grayish brown in winter.
Sounds: Snorts, grunts and bleats.

Food

White-tailed deer eat many foods, such as acorns, corn, soybeans, mushrooms, grasses, tree leaves, buds, twigs and bark, wild grapes, apples and assorted shrubs.

Habitat and Range

White-tailed deer live in prairies, forests, swamps, wood lots and agricultural fields. They are common in both suburban and rural areas.

The Cache

The container is a camouflaged beach tube hanging in a tree. The cache contains a log, a pencil with an add-on eraser, a sharpener and a handmade polymer-clay gummybear.

In winter, the trail is used extensively by snowmobilers. Be watchful for snowmobile (snow machine) traffic as it can exceed 60 mph.