Syracuse.com - How to be sure a deer is dead after being hit by a vehicle or shot by a hunter

[HuntingNY-News]

Approach it from the side and touch an eye. That’s 100 percent.

Nick Lisi/The Post-Standard My brother-in-law, Ace Fitzgerald, told me that he and his buddies got 14 deer on opening day.

Ace, an employee with the state Department of Transportation, was talking about how many deer were picked up off state roads in the greater Binghamton area that day. Evidently, the rut was still going strong on opening weekend and the deer were moving all over as part of their breeding behavior.

One thing he noted that I’d never heard before — and it behooves hunters or anyone else dealing with supposedly dead deer to consider: How do you know for sure when one is dead?

“If you find what you think is a dead deer and its eyes are closed, it’s not dead,” Ace said.

He said he and his co-workers in recent weeks picked up two deer in separate instances that had closed eyes and showed all the signs of being dead. The carcasses were loaded into a truck and taken to a place to be landfilled. Upon arriving, the deer in both instances stirred and lifted their heads in the truck.

Ace said one of the deer was just left in the truck and allowed to die before it was removed. In the other case, the animal was more active and a state trooper was called to put it down with a special rubber bullet fired at close range, he said.

Is my brother-in-law right? In addition, how can a hunter know that a deer he or she has just shot has expired?

Veteran deer hunter Wayne Masters, of Tully, said most hunters carefully approach a downed deer from behind, taking care to stay clear of the animal’s hooves and antlers. Both could cause serious damage should the animal suddenly stir and attack.

“Most hunters I know take their gun barrel and touch an eye,” he said. “If it’s still alive and you do that, you’ll get a reaction out of it. Otherwise, it’s dead.”

Mike Hall, a retired DEC wildlife biologist and longtime deer hunter, agreed with Masters about touching the eye with the tip of a gun barrel or a stick. He said he’s heard several tales over the years of novice hunters taking deer home without field dressing them, intending to do it later, only to find out when they got home that the animal was still alive.

“I remember one guy put a deer in the trunk and when he got to where he was going and opened the trunk, the deer was flopping all around,” he said. “The guy grabbed his .22 handgun and finished it off with a shot to the head, forgetting about the car’s gas tank. Fortunately, he didn’t hit it (the tank).”

So what about my brother-in-law’s “closed eyes” rule?

Hall said it’s not a certainty.

“Approach from the side and touch an eye. That’s 100 percent,” he said.

View the full article on The Syracuse Outdoors Blog