Has Anyone else hunted "Burro Deer" ? Any Stories about them?

[Mustangs Rule]

For the record, Burro Deer are also called Desert Mule Deer, a distinct subspecies found in our extreme low deserts from West Texas, through southernmost New Mexico, Arizona and California also across northernmost Mexico where they are know as The Mexican Mule Deer or "Los Buro's with one "R".

Mostly in Mexico the hunts are tracking hunts but that might have changed to spotting and shooting them at a distance, or not. They tend to hang out in cactus tangles.

They get their name from having huge ears which act as cooling radiators. They are often lighter in color, golden almost to reflect back the sunlight. They tend to be long legged and tall as they engage in distant treks for water. With a good diet they can really become large with very fine antlers, though all the ones I shot were on the harshest deserts and were small.

Like Desert Bighorn Sheep and the Sonoran Desert "Ghost Antelope" Burro Deer have kidneys that are specialized to conserve water from the plants they eat. Their piss is really concentrated and stinks terribly.

When it's available, they heavily feed on Mesquite Tree seed pods, Mesquite is member of the Locust family, think "Honey Locust". known for being sweet and i found their meat to have a sweetness to it then.

Anyway, I hunted them for over ten years, always in desert wilderness and doing solo often multi day tracking hunts. I wondered if anyone else has also hunted them and has any experiences to share.

MR

 

[AntelopeEater]

I live in Southern Nevada, is there actually a difference between "regular" Desert Mule Deer and the deer you are referring to?

Mule Deer are called mule deer because they have large ears like mules.

 

[Mustangs Rule]

I live in Southern Nevada, is there actually a difference between "regular" Desert Mule Deer and the deer you are referring to?

Mule Deer are called mule deer because they have large ears like mules.

Yes there are Burro deer in southern Nevada and i hunted them right on the state border with herds going back and forth. Right up around Charlston Peak you will find them.

And yes there are so many differences. If you took Rocky mountain Mule deer from extreme Northern Nevada and put them in extreme southern Nevada and vice versa, the mortality rate would be so high for both.

The Burro deer has larger ears than the already large ears of the Rocky Mountain Mule deer. Their ears have blood vessels close to the surface for cooling blood, so much like the desert bighorn compared Rocky Mountain Big Horn

The Burro deer's fur is thinner, their skin thinner, they are lighter, they have more sweat glands, the loops of Henles, where water is saved in their kidneys are much longer in these desert animals, and they come into rut in January.

The dividing line is right around Winnemucca Nevada. look to the west and the Sierra Mountains are very high going south, they block rain. Going north the Sierra Nevada Mountains are thousands of feet lower, so much more rain hits northern Nevada because of this, different biomes.
Also the Burro deer are really like whitetails in their defense mechanisms. When scared they just disappear in really thick dry jungles of Agave, Ocotillo, Joshua Trees and Mesquite forests, that can be 10 to 20 feet high. Like Cous Deer they are skulkers, and do not anywhere as much just go bounding away bouncing up and down in open country Like Rocky Mountain Mule deer.

And they taste better due to a sweeter diet, Cactus fruits, mesquite seeds pods, agave flowers, and tender green Ocotillo leaves.

Thank you for your post.

 

[Mustangs Rule]

Regarding animal ears, I have had many breeds of horses. The ears on mustangs are small, thick covered with deep fur and hair inside and out, They are made to fight frostbite. The ears on an Arabian horse are longer bigger, very little hair, actually smooth not fluffy with veins near the surface,,,made for cooling their blood near their brains.

The Rocky Mountain Mule Deer and the Burro Deer are very distinct sub-species.
I would even suspect that the Burro deer has incredibly more immunity to rattle snake venom. Horses are so susceptible to being bit in the nose when grazing, same for deer. And so much of their range overlaps with the range of the genuinely deadly Mohave Green rattlesnake.

 

[backcountry_sassn]

There is no real difference between them besides the fact that they are regionally adapted. They have less fat because they dont have the feed to build fat and their body burns fat quicker while trying to keep cool on the hot heat, and can survive on leaner feed because th dont need the insulation. The only reason they would have trouble if you transplanted the so called "burro deer" up north is because they wouldn't know how to build up the fat to survive the winter. And the northern deer wouldn't know how to live on less water. Other then knowledge, there is nothing physically that would make them not survive the other climate.

Even with antler growth, "desert deer" only grow bigger because the feed in the desert is better for Horn growth, and they can get good feed before northern deer because they dont have snow. And since a big factor in horn growth is the health of the doe while the buck is a fetus, the best time for feed on desert deer is the winter. So the habitat provides better opportunity for bucks to get bigger.

 

[Mustangs Rule]

There is no real difference between them besides the fact that they are regionally adapted. They have less fat because they dont have the feed to build fat and their body burns fat quicker while trying to keep cool on the hot heat, and can survive on leaner feed because th dont need the insulation. The only reason they would have trouble if you transplanted the so called "burro deer" up north is because they wouldn't know how to build up the fat to survive the winter. And the northern deer wouldn't know how to live on less water. Other then knowledge, there is nothing physically that would make them not survive the other climate.

Even with antler growth, "desert deer" only grow bigger because the feed in the desert is better for Horn growth, and they can get good feed before northern deer because they dont have snow. And since a big factor in horn growth is the health of the doe while the buck is a fetus, the best time for feed on desert deer is the winter. So the habitat provides better opportunity for bucks to get bigger.

The Loops of Henle's in the Nephrons of the Burros deer's kidneys are twice as long as the Mules Deer's to conserve water.

Their fur is more golden. lighter to reflect back heat from sunlight. Their ears are larger to act as heat releasing radiators. The blood vessels in their ears are close to the surface. The burro deer's ears would suffer from frostbite up north.

Their legs are longer for long treks to water,

They are totally distinct subspecies evolved to be mutually exclusive to the extreme of each other's habitat. Their ruts are even months different.

 

[Exhausted]

The Loops of Henle's in the Nephrons of the Burros deer's kidneys are twice as long as the Mules Deer's to conserve water.

Their fur is more golden. lighter to reflect back heat from sunlight. Their ears are larger to act as heat releasing radiators. The blood vessels in their ears are close to the surface. The burro deer's ears would suffer from frostbite up north.

Their legs are longer for long treks to water,

They are totally distinct subspecies evolved to be mutually exclusive to the extreme of each other's habitat. Their ruts are even months different.

In Florida, the whitetail rut is months different across the state from north to south.

 

[backcountry_sassn]

The Loops of Henle's in the Nephrons of the Burros deer's kidneys are twice as long as the Mules Deer's to conserve water.

Their fur is more golden. lighter to reflect back heat from sunlight. Their ears are larger to act as heat releasing radiators. The blood vessels in their ears are close to the surface. The burro deer's ears would suffer from frostbite up north.

Their legs are longer for long treks to water,

They are totally distinct subspecies evolved to be mutually exclusive to the extreme of each other's habitat. Their ruts are even months different.

Same deer, different habitats. Sounds like one has less body fat than the other which would be more caused by food types, and calorie intake vs calories burned. Antelope in wyoming have different bodies than antelope in nevada. Same antelope, different habitat. DNA of a so called Burro deer is the same and a mule deer. Same deer, same species, just different habitat.

 

[Mustangs Rule]

Same deer, different habitats. Sounds like one has less body fat than the other which would be more caused by food types, and calorie intake vs calories burned. Antelope in wyoming have different bodies than antelope in nevada. Same antelope, different habitat. DNA of a so called Burro deer is the same and a mule deer. Same deer, same species, just different habitat.

Epigenetics' at work. same genes, but different combinations get created and get passed down to next generation. This is step on the road to actually producing different species.

Burro Deer and Mule deer are officially classified by mammalogists as distinct sub species.

 

[Jnasa]

I take a big grain of salt with mammalogists classifying a distinct subspecies. There a "lumpers" and "splitters". Some people want to split everything out into its own subspecies.

I imagine if someone wanted to we could have a dozen different sub species of whitetail deer.

There is regional adaptability in most species. The line of when it gets adopted as a unique subspecies is blurry.

To be fair Grizzly and Brown bear are separated only because of Boone and Crocket Club. There are unique differences but they are the same species. Brown bears get larger because of more abundant resources.

 

[Blowdowner]

I imagine if someone wanted to we could have a dozen different sub species of whitetail deer.

no not even close. There's more difference between mule deer and deer habitat over single mountain ranges west of the Rockies than there is across all white tail and all their habitat in America east of the Rockies.

 

[Mustangs Rule]

I take a big grain of salt with mammalogists classifying a distinct subspecies. There a "lumpers" and "splitters". Some people want to split everything out into its own subspecies.

I imagine if someone wanted to we could have a dozen different sub species of whitetail deer.

There is regional adaptability in most species. The line of when it gets adopted as a unique subspecies is blurry.

To be fair Grizzly and Brown bear are separated only because of Boone and Crocket Club. There are unique differences but they are the same species. Brown bears get larger because of more abundant resources.

I first heard this discussion about lumpers and splitters 56 years ago when I entered college as a freshman biology major. By the time I was in graduate school taking a class in mammalogy with new genetic research was going in the direction of the splitters.

Fruit flies share 60 % of human DNA and chimps share 98.8 to 99 % of human DNA.

When the study of epigenetics began to take off 30 years ago the direction went more in the direction of splitters as the choices DNA was making for offspring became more collective and inherited.

True desert bighorn sheep and rocky mountain bighorns could not survive in each other's biomes not because they needed acclimation knowledge and biological adjustment but because they had gone down different inherited epigenetically determined paths 750,000 years ago. They are different sub-species.

If a big male Grizzley mated with sow Grizzley from the smaller sized population of our southwest, she would likely have problems carrying and giving birth.

We got down to 21 Grey Ghost Sonoran Desert antelope. Now we have hundreds, but if they went extinct no other antelope had the genetic instructions to survive there.

This idea that so many animals are the same species instead of being valid sub-species is how developers and extraction industries try and get away with damaging environmental practices.

The scientific validation has gone way in the direction of splitters, not just based on physical characteristics but based on often invisible and irreversible
epigenetic choices.

Just had this thought, there are so many different types of Model 70 Winchesters. Pre-WW2, pre-64, post 64 push-feeds, Still New Haven made "Kinda controlled round feed", the less than best ones made in South Carolina, and now the ones made in Portugal under FN supervision. Then there are stainless, and blue steel, wood or synthetic stocks, standard weights and featherweights, finally so many different calibers, all Model 70's

But, are they all the same?