The possibility of getting snapshots of wildlife provoked the idea of using these tools to help in wildlife management practices. When Oklahoma State University Division of Agricultural Sciences and Natural Resources graduate student Valerie Cook was asked to do some deer population research in northwestern Oklahoma, trail cams immediately came to mind.

“Camera surveys are an innovative way to get a more accurate estimate and more insight to what bucks are in your herd, or what the sex ratio looks like,” said Cook, who is now working on her doctorate degree at OSU. “It provides much more insight to your herd composition, rather than just a density estimate.”

Private landowners in Woods County had concerns that an overabundant deer population may have been depleting the food resources, or heavily browsing on food plants that are seed producers for Northern bobwhites. This is where Cook comes in.

An area of 2,000 acres was established to conduct the research. Ten camera stations were baited every few days beginning 10 days prior to a two-week census period of the northern 1,000 acres.  During the census, the cameras collected still frames of deer that triggered the motion sensors. 

Following the north census, the same procedure took place for the southern 1,000 acres.

“We wanted to address how many deer were actually there,” Cook said. “As the technology with trail cams has progressed, people have moved from more traditional forms of population surveys.”

After the two census periods were completed the data was compiled. Individual branch-antlered bucks were identified, while spike-buck occurrences were counted. These figures added together provided an estimate of the total number of bucks on the 2,000 acres.

Then the doe occurrences were counted; then the fawns. When compared to the sex ratio, and doe to fawn ratio, an estimate of total deer was calculated. The results showed that, in this given area, there was one deer per 10.5 acres.

The project also included browse surveys, which helped to determine if the deer population was below, at, or exceeding carrying capacity of the habitat.

“The deer population exceeded carrying capacity,” Cook said.

Finally, vegetation sampling showed that the deer, while overpopulated, were not causing decrease in seed production of grass and forbs for the quail population.

The smaller-than-expected bobwhite population in this area of Woods County is not related to the deer in the area. However, land managers are using this information to help with deer population management.

“They will be able to develop harvest strategies to reach a desired sex ratio in the herd,” Cook said. “It was a very interesting project.”