The Science of Sight: What Whitetails Can Really See

[Drift]

Well said DNS . Still, I always wear camo while hunting cause it cant hurt; but "I'd rather be lucky than wearing the perfect camo".

[montana]

In my youth mountain lions were scared of humans and if a person got sight of one it was their back side in a full run. At that time they could be shot year round as they were considered vermin. Today they act much more aggressive and quite bold around people with more people being attacked. Lack of hunting and perceiving humans as a threat is my explanation. While hunting mule deer the largest were always the first to disappear while the younger ones response time was much slower and more vulnerable. The deer I shot in the clearing had maneuvered around hunters I saw not not 15 minutes earlier in the same spot he had appeared. I witnessed an elk herd trot right in front of a group hunters both in and out on the same opening with the hunters completely oblivious to them. . One summer I was skidding logs and stopped for lunch while there was other equipment running all around me. A large bull elk in velvet appeared and had zero fear as he foraged down branches right in front of me and other running equipment. Come hunting season it becomes a different story. Instinct or intelligence I give these animals high marks for survival, awareness and adaptability. I'll let others debate the why and how.

[bwaites]

Well, if you are in a fabric camo blind, then wearing camo isn't a problem because you will blend into the blind, LOL.



BULL.

The article immediately lost credibility with me when the expert stated that the whitetail was the most studied animal on the planet. Rats are probably the most studied non-human vertebrate, followed by mice, both of which have been extensively studied biologically and behaviorally. Of course, humans are more studied and non-vertebrates such as nematodes and fruitflies even more extensively studied.

Deer do see blue and into the UV portion of the spectrum and there have been studies indicating this, but in following the authors' lead to inform the public, let's not overstate the position with outlandish claims that give a false sense of enlightenment.

Should say "most studied game animal".

[BjornF16]

I have also come to understand that many animals are blind, such as deer. Hunters often exclaim, "He couldn't see me. He looked right at me but couldn't see me." No, the deer saw the hunter. After all, you are in the deer's house where the deer lives its entire life in fear of being chasing down and torn apart and eaten. However, the deer can't live its entire life running from everything that could hurt it. That would be biologically unsound. Deer only take flight when they believe they need to take flight. A hunter may have the potential to be a threat, but that does not mean that the hunter is a threat.

So which is it?...deer are blind or they can see every hunter they look at?

I think it is pretty well established that deer don't see well, but they are obviously not blind. Deer will see some hunters, but not all. They key in on movement. Most hunters aren't very still.

Same day I had the close encounter with deer I also had a falcon (whom most would agree had very good vision) come swooping from a nearby tree (where I was watching him) directly at me. At about 5 yards, he finally saw me and put on the brakes, and changed directions. I attributed it to being very still and decent camo.

You know what they say about opinions though...

[muzz1504]

When I was growing up we would put a few rounds in the pocket of our blue jeans, put on a red checked shirt, and go deer hunting. We did ok getting deer. Now I sometimes can't believe how much stuff I think I need to carry in the woods to hunt 'the right way'. I normally wear a turkey hunting vest to haul all the junk.

In my opinion, we train the deer. When they feel hunting pressure, the mature bucks around here will be primarily nocturnal until the rut makes them do something stupid. I used to bow hunt a lot on public ground. Many times I have been watching deer feed when hunters come through the woods. Sometimes the deer just ease off, sometimes snort and run, but the most entertaining are the ones that lay down, put their chin on the ground, watch the hunters pass, then get back up and continue to feed. People walking through the woods aren't a threat to them but if a hunter spots one, stops and stares, the deer will break and run.

[rebelsoul]

Good thread LURP. I read a similar article from Auburn University. My conclusions; Deer don't see well in bright light. The sun at my back and wind in my face is optimal. Phosphate detergents make your clothes glow to a deer. I use a cheap phosphate free type from Dollar General. I use camo just attempting to brake my outline. Deer seem to move more on overcast days. I stay obscured in the thickets with a lit cigar as my guide. Believe me, I get CLOSE. I have some pics and vids I'll share soon... The "Grendel Girls" will have to help me.

[Beerswimmer]

I once read a good article with pics about what deer see. They see mostly yellow, and blue. The sky and bluejeans and some flowers are just about the only thing that isn't some shade of yellow to them.

[Double Naught Spy]

So which is it?...deer are blind or they can see every hunter they look at?

I think it is pretty well established that deer don't see well, but they are obviously not blind. Deer will see some hunters, but not all. They key in on movement. Most hunters aren't very still.

Same day I had the close encounter with deer I also had a falcon (whom most would agree had very good vision) come swooping from a nearby tree (where I was watching him) directly at me. At about 5 yards, he finally saw me and put on the brakes, and changed directions. I attributed it to being very still and decent camo.

You know what they say about opinions though...

Well of course deer are not blind, but you would think for various hunter testimonies that they must be blind, the hunter likely misinterpreting behavior for capability. Remember, that many of the hunters claiming to be invisible to deer because they are wearing camo and amazingly are wearing the same camo that the article says makes them stand out in the environment.

If we applied the same standard of interpreting behavior as capability to African lions and humans, then we would have to assume that the African lions also have poor vision because they don't always react to humans either. Nobody claims that African lions have poor vision. It would seem that they have vision at least as good as our own in daylight and far superior night vision vision capability than we do. You never hear a hunter from African exclaim that a lion looked right at him and could not see him because the lion didn't attack or run away, but yet we think the deer can't see us if they don't run away. It is an interesting sort of double standard where if when applying the same sort of behavioral test, getting the same result isn't attributable to the same cause.

It is also interesting how we talk about how animals such as deer (or in my preferred area, hogs) have such poor senses of vision, yet these animals can navigate dense woods at high speed in the dark. I have watched more than one hunter walk into trees and fall over obstacles in low light situations. The notion that they have poor vision is just judgmentally inaccurate and firmly biased based on what humans value in vision. In reality, deer see well enough for the types of threats and things that they need to see in their environment for the distances they need to see. They have a much larger FOV (~310 degrees) than do humans (~180 degrees) and see better at night than humans. Put another way, we have a 180 degree blind spot behind us. They only have a 50 degree blind spot. So keep in mind that they actually see much more of their immediate environment than we do. These are capabilities humans do not value because we don't have these capabilities or we use technology to compensate for our shortcomings.

We relish visual acuity of which deer have about half of our capability. So we see as well at 40 feet as they do at 20, at 200 yards as well as they do at 100. They see fewer colors than we do in the visual portion of the spectrum, but the "visual portion" is based on a human capability. They see into the invisible UV portion of the spectrum that we can't see. But to say that they don't see well just isn't accurate. They see differently than we do and in some ways much better than we do and in some ways poorer than we do.

So do deer have poor vision? That all depends on the standard by which you decide to judge them. If you reverse the standard to assess vision based on a deer's capabilities, we suck at seeing in the UV portion of the spectrum, FOV, and seeing at night by comparison to deer. Also keep in mind that most hunters who are claiming invisibility to deer aren't at 200 yards or 400 yards, but at very short ranges where the deer see well enough.

We can compound the issue even further by adding in the factor of situational awareness. Now we aren't talking about visual capability, but how the mind is processing the information. We have probably all seen horny bucks trailing a doe in heat, or engaged in a battle with another buck, oblivious to the environment around them. They are not in visual decline during these periods, but mentally impaired due to preoccupation (sometimes called inattention or perceptual blindness in some circumstances). Stimuli to the senses may be ignored due to this preoccupation.

So the whole matter what a deer can see versus what a deer can see and reacts to that 'we' recognize is much more complicated than just simply visual capability, but that is often what is the attributed cause.

[rickt300]

I look at it this way, unlike a hog a deer needs two of it's senses to be alerted before it spooks. And if you are wearing two completely different colors that a deer sees as a dark and a light shade then you are two different things it is looking at. If you are sitting and your outline is broken then the deer may be curious but doesn't take flight. If you are standing in the open you still may not spook the deer until you either move or it gets your scent. Interestingly I have spooked more than a few Mule deer at pretty long range when a whitetail in the same circumstances probably wouldn't have noticed me.

[BjornF16]

Well of course deer are not blind, but you would think for various hunter testimonies that they must be blind, the hunter likely misinterpreting behavior for capability. Remember, that many of the hunters claiming to be invisible to deer because they are wearing camo and amazingly are wearing the same camo that the article says makes them stand out in the environment.

Good discussion. The real answer is "it depends". We have a tendency to think two dimensionally. What I mean to say is that in low light situations, I think these "blues" will stand out more than in bright light to a deer. Said another way, in certain light these "bad" camo clothing stand out while in other light situations they make no difference.

It is also interesting how we talk about how animals such as deer (or in my preferred area, hogs) have such poor senses of vision, yet these animals can navigate dense woods at high speed in the dark. I have watched more than one hunter walk into trees and fall over obstacles in low light situations. The notion that they have poor vision is just judgmentally inaccurate and firmly biased based on what humans value in vision. In reality, deer see well enough for the types of threats and things that they need to see in their environment for the distances they need to see. They have a much larger FOV (~310 degrees) than do humans (~180 degrees) and see better at night than humans. Put another way, we have a 180 degree blind spot behind us. They only have a 50 degree blind spot. So keep in mind that they actually see much more of their immediate environment than we do. These are capabilities humans do not value because we don't have these capabilities or we use technology to compensate for our shortcomings.

We relish visual acuity of which deer have about half of our capability. So we see as well at 40 feet as they do at 20, at 200 yards as well as they do at 100. They see fewer colors than we do in the visual portion of the spectrum, but the "visual portion" is based on a human capability. They see into the invisible UV portion of the spectrum that we can't see. But to say that they don't see well just isn't accurate. They see differently than we do and in some ways much better than we do and in some ways poorer than we do.

So do deer have poor vision? That all depends on the standard by which you decide to judge them. If you reverse the standard to assess vision based on a deer's capabilities, we suck at seeing in the UV portion of the spectrum, FOV, and seeing at night by comparison to deer. Also keep in mind that most hunters who are claiming invisibility to deer aren't at 200 yards or 400 yards, but at very short ranges where the deer see well enough.

Rods and cones. Humans have a balance of rods and cones that result in excellent visual acuity (looking straight on) in bright light and passable visual acuity (peripheral) in low light (and virtually non-existent sight in dark).

Other animals have a different make up of rods and cones (and of different types of rods and cones). In the deer's case, I believe they have excellent "poor" vision in low light (poor in the sense that visual acuity is not good, but they see a lot more than we do in low light and even dark for that matter). As you say, they only have roughly 50* of blind spot at the expense of acuity (excellent for picking up movement but not so much in seeing detail). From our perspective, I believe deer see mostly what we see in our peripheral vision (except not as many colors). If you think about it, we don't see detail very well in our peripheral vision but we can detect motion very well. We see motion in our periphery, then snap our eyes to look directly at the line of sight where we saw motion in order to see detail. Deer aren't as fortunate in seeing detail we see.

So the whole matter what a deer can see versus what a deer can see and reacts to that 'we' recognize is much more complicated than just simply visual capability, but that is often what is the attributed cause.

Concur. From everything I've read, we spend a lot of money of beautiful 3D camo patterns that are excellent camouflage for humans. I'm guilty of this in the past. Based on some of this research, simpler "break-up camo" that avoids blue tones are "best" for deer hunting (which is not to say others don't work to some degree). One guy I know takes a handheld blue light with him when he shops for hunting clothing. He looks for inexpensive selections, puts them to the blue light test and, if they pass, he buys. He claims a lot of the expensive camo patterns fail while some of the more basic ones pass. Of course, this could also have something to do with these clothes being washed in phosphates to make them brighter for the discerning shopper.

[Fat Albert]

Here is a K9 color test. http://www.predatormastersforums.com...orvision.shtml

[Drift]

Hmm.. great thread. Most of us buy camo for hunting more than one species.
So..If a camo pattern works on deer, will it work well on turkey?