Originally Posted By: bill
For those that think a deer can distinguish between harmful intent and non harmful intent, y'all are giving deer way too much credit in the intelligence department. They are dumb as dirt but have a great survival instinct. Everything they do is based around survival. The reason they get used to farmers is because the farmer is there every day and isn't in their bedroom. If you put feeders in fields and visit them everyday the deer will get used to you too.


they distinguish harmful intent vs. non harmful intent through their survival instinct. I don't think deer are very smart but they are great at figuring out trends or patterns. If the trend is a person drives up to a field and dumps out corn and leaves, especially during a time of year when there are no gun shots, no increase in 4 wheelers, etc. they are going to learn that there is no harm. Exact opposite when deer start smelling humans in places they haven't been all summer, hearing them/ seeing them/ smelling them before sun up in the woods and hearing 4 wheelers crank up and hear gun shots going off. Probably another reason MW deer aren't as skittish. Woods aren't nearly deep so deer are used to seeing humans in and around the woodlots and fields all year long. Kind of different than seeing humans in the middle of 2000 acres of hardwoods or pines at only certain times of the year.

Last edited by truedouble; 10/08/14 11:51 AM.