The white-tailed deer population in British Columbia, especially in this region, has grown over the years to numbers never known before, so much so that it has reached a point where it is a problem to the resident mule deer.

As white-tailed deer grow in numbers, the mule deer numbers are declining.

Mule deer require a specific habitat to thrive. White-tailed deer, on the other hand, are not burdened with such specialized living conditions. Whitetails can live just about anywhere, from the swamps of Florida to the northern alpine regions.

Whitetails are adaptable and more aggressive than mule deer. But there is another problem that is a far greater threat to mule deer. It’s a quirk of Mother Nature. In areas where mule deer and white-tailed deer populations overlap, interspecies breeding takes place.

The offspring of a mule deer doe that was fathered by a white-tailed buck are sterile whereas the young produced from a mule deer buck mating with a white-tailed doe are not.

Mule deer are either driven out of their habitat or they are bred out by whitetails.

What to do? Good question, and one that the B.C. Environment Ministry has pondered for over four years. The solution: lower the numbers of the white-tailed deer population.

So this year, after consultations with biologists and hunters, the government issued a general open season for whitetail does. When I heard about it, I was wondering how many hunters could tell the subtle difference between a mule deer doe and a whitetail doe.

I started several Internet polls on hunting websites.

The results were quite shocking. Of the over 1,000 hunters that took part in the poll, only 43 per cent could positively identify a mule deer doe from a white-tailed deer doe.

At first glance, there is very little difference between the two deer species, the most obvious being that mule deer “bound” and whitetails “dash” – not that a respectable hunter would shoot at an animal in flight.
So what else can we look for to make a positive identification? Let’s start with the head. A whitetail deer has distinct white rings around the eyes and around the mouth, setting it off against the black nose tip. A mule deer has no such facial markings or they are very faint, in a light brownish-greyish tone. The ears of whitetails are quite a bit smaller than those of a mule deer but it’s hard to tell for sure at a distance.
The best way to identify a deer is to look at its backside.
The whitetails have a brown rump. The wide (bushy) tail is brown, framed by a thin white fringe. The mule deer rump is white and the rope-like tail is also white with a black tip.
I encourage every hunter taking advantage of this new hunting opportunity to take the necessary precautions and identify the animals properly. There are many good images on the Internet to compare the two species against each other at every angle.
The B.C. Hunting Regulations Synopsis also provides identification information and so does the CORE (hunter education) manual that every hunter should have on the bookshelf.
Mule deer does are protected and shooting one could lead to poaching investigations through the conservation officers (depending on the circumstances of each case).
For season dates and management units where the whitetail-doe-hunting season is open, refer to the B.C. Hunting Regulations Synopsis available at the hunting and fishing retail stores in town.