4 caribou looks like, take a look at a
quarter which, contrary to popular belief,
does not bear the likeness of a moose).

ince moose also inhabit northern areas,
“they also need some way of assuring travel
in deep snow. But, because of their very
large body size, and because they spend mest
‘of their winter in sheltered woodlands where
the snow does not pack hard, caribou-like
snowshoes would be impractical. So, they
have evolved stilts. With their amazingly
long legs they are able to stride over deep
snowbanks with little impediment. Since
moose are primarily browsers (i.e. eaters of
twigs) they do not need to paw away the snow
to get at their food, but they do take advan-
tage of their rangy builds to reach to very
high levels for their food, or failing that,
to knock whole trees down to obtain the top-
most twigs.

The third ungulate, the white-tailed deer, has
no winter to contend with at all over much of
its range, which is centered in the United
AStates. Those white-tailed deer which do
inhabit southern Canada, lacking anatomical
daptations for winter conditions, have
@ eioces behaviour patterns which enable

7
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tga ntar

& wet - see a
some of chem tc survive aach winter

season. These include the tendency to concen-
trate in "yards", or traditional areas where
there is good shelter and food, and where
travel is possible on beaten trails which are

maintained throughout the winter.

When European explorers first arrived on Prince

Edward Island, they found a landscape dominated

by hardwood forests, whose cover was only
occasionally broken by bogs, marshes, dunes,
and clearings caused by fire or wind. In
theory, such a habitat should be the domain of
the white-tailed deer, but the reason that
white-tails never colonized the Island is
simply that they were not around at the right
time, During the retreat of the last
continental glacier, when enough water was
still tied up in the ice to keep Northumberland
Strait dry, the Maritime region was covered
with first tundra, and then boreal vegetation.
At this time both caribou and moose, inhab-
itants of these regions, seized the oppor-
ity of crossing the land bridge to invade
es Island, and, although the habitat
- was not perfectly suited to their normal
habits, both species survived up to the coming
of the white man.

But by the time the white-tailed deer
invaded the Maritime region, the land
bridge had been cut off by rising ocean
levels, so they never had their chance
to test the suitability of our primeval
habitat.

At the present time, our second-growth
woodlands could probably support a large
population of white-tailed deer, but
conflicts between deer and farmers

would be inevitable. The single attempt
at introducing deer to the Island fizzled
when most of the immigrants ended up in
local stew-pots, and any further intro-
ductions would likely come to the same
end.

David Cairns

S2incge 22 e RRR RAR EHR HH

At its March meeting the P. E. I.
Natural History Society decided to
oppose the proposal by the P. E. I.
Wildlife Federation to indroduce
white-tailed deer to the province for
hunting purposes. Reasons cited were
potential damage to farm crops, increased
danger to the public with increased
hunting activity and a lack of
habitat where the deer would not be
disturbed.