

Thursday, July 17, 2008

Young black-tailed deer buck

I was always confused if it was the mule deer or the Columbian black-tailed deer that inhabited the islands, and it turns out the answer is: both. The black-tailed deer are a subspecies of the mule deer, named for their huge ears. An interesting fact about the island deer is that they are native inhabitants, swimming here from the mainland. Occasionally you can still see them swimming between the channels, and I've seen them on small islands off the coast where the only way they could get there is by swimming. Personally, I think this means we can call them another one of our native marine mammal species, but so far that hasn't caught on.

This young buck was down at American Camp, still hanging out with what was probably his twin yearling brother.

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