Climate Change and Deer Activity Near Stockton University

By: Dana Kelly

Stockton University

Wildlife Management ENVL 3121

Introduction
Based on annual average temperatures from 1970, New Jersey was found to be the sixth
fastest-warming state with an overall increase in average temperature of 2.2F from 1900 and a
maximum overall increase of 3.1F per decade from 1970. The last time New Jersey experienced
record-breaking cold months was 1989, while record breaking warm months have seen changes
made to the top five about fifty times. (NJDEP) The rising temperatures in New Jersey are
affecting its overall climate, introducing increased precipitation and causing occasional heat
waves. This overall change in climate is affecting species globally, with deer showing some
behavioral changes through several studies.
Spring activities of multiple species have been progressively occurring earlier and earlier
with the direction of climate change since 1960. One study in Sierra Nevada, California looked
at a population of mule deer and their patterns of migration over eleven years that had varying
environmental conditions. This study found that for mule deer, autumn migration varied but was
associated with the severity of winter weather, particularly snow depth and cold temperatures,
and that winter migratory responses were affected by the age, condition, and summer residency
of individual females. This study found that changes to migration timing may be an adaptive
behavioral strategy, specifically based on snow depths and foraging opportunities. (Monteith, et
al., 2011)
Another study looked at pignut hickory and found that changes in stand may be driven by
deer browse and feral hog predation. It was found that drier climates resulted in very open forest
with little regeneration of woody plants. This open forest, driven and partially created by climate,
influences deer browsing. With that in consideration, overgrazing can further lower regeneration
rates. While deer overpopulation is an issue many areas face, the added factor of climate change
was found to further drive the effects of high deer population issues in this study. (Smith, et al.,
2015)
New Jersey’s deer population consists of white-tailed deer specifically. One study of
migration for white tailed deer in Minnesota found that mean winter home ranges were over
twice as large as mean summer home ranges. Temperature and snow depth were found to have
the greatest influence on the initiation of seasonal migration, much like that of mule deer in the
study mentioned before.(Brinkman, Deperno, Jenks, Haroldson, & Osborn, 2005)
When looking at the white-tailed deer population only in New Jersey, effects of climate
change are seen as well. Climate change has effects that further cause the overabundance of
white-tailed deer, as well as effects that increase stressors like habitat destruction, pollution, and
invasive species. If climate changes continue to affect deer movement by delaying and increasing
it within certain areas, overgrazing could negatively impact regeneration in forests as well as
understory landscape, in which more barren understories would arise.
A side effect of climate change in relation to deer is that of tick abundance. Increases in
daily average temperatures create an increase of tick abundance due to higher overall rates or
tick survival. Warmer weather and higher humidity rates create better host availability, which is
required for the tick feeding and life cycle. Only a 2C increase in annual average temperature
could potentially lead to a 20% increase in Lyme's Disease cases in the United States, according
to predictions. (Monteith, et al., 2011) White-tailed deer are often used as hosts in New Jersey,
making their potential climate-change driven population increases dangerous if in combination
with potential climate-change driven population increases in ticks.
With studies all around showing clear correlations between species behavior and climate
change, white-tail deer behavior in a small area of forest surrounding Stockton University, in
Galloway, New Jersey, can also be considered. Using five different wildlife cameras within the
area, comparisons of deer activity and weather in specific months over different years can
display any possible correlation. Deer activity in this paper is defined as the number of deer
spotted in photos over a given month. Weather in this paper is referred to as the high and low
temperature in F of the given month, with mentions of that month’s precipitation and snowfall in
inches.

Methods
Within the forest surrounding Stockton University, there’s eight wildlife camera sites.
The cameras take images when movement is detected, typically in bursts of three. Out of the
eight camera sites, I specifically chose six initial sites to retrieve data from: the burn camera,
clearcut camera, dump camera, end trail camera, frog pond camera, and lake camera. I chose
these sites based on the dates they covered as they were the most comparable, allowing for the
number of deer to be combined for multiple sites to assure the largest sample sizes possible.
Upon collection of the cameras, the photos are observed and their data is entered into
Microsoft Excel in six main categories:
● Date: x/xx/xx format
● Time
● Common name: I.e; deer, fox, human, etc.
● Number of animals in photo: how many different animals can be identified in a photo.
● Number of photos: how many photos were taken
● Station: which camera the photos were on

For this paper, I looked only at the date, common name, recorded number of animals, and the
stations. Within the common name category, I only looked at deer. Looking at only deer, I
organized the stations by month and year. Through doing this, I was able to organize the number
of deer accounted for throughout the six different sites on a month by month basis.
Once I collected all possible data from the camera sites, I further organized it into which
cameras spanned the longest consistent range of time. I found that the dump, end, and lake sites
all had data entered spanning from May 2015-May 2017. The clearcut, dump, burn, lake, and end
sites all had data entered from March 2016-February 2018. I combined the month by month
numbers for these sites within those time spans.
 With the time spans given, average high and low temperatures and average precipitation
and snowfall in inches were collected from US climate data. These numbers were matched with
the number of deer for the applicable time to see if any correlations could be detected. To better
display the data, graphs were created using Microsoft Excel.

Results

First observing the data from a combination of five different sites throughout March
2016-February 2018 there’s apparent rises and falls within the deer population. These can be
seen in Figures 1 and 2.
Specifically, from November to December 2017, the deer population saw a significant
drop, and the numbers remain low through February 2018. The drop that occured from
November 2017 to December 2017 could be related to climate in two ways: 1) As noted in
Figure 5, November 2017 saw above average high temperatures and below average low
temperatures. December 2017, however, saw below average high and low temperatures.
Considering this factor, the continuum of low numbers in January 2018 may be contributed to
the fact January 2018 continued December’s trend in having below average/not above average
temperatures. In February 2018, when the numbers began to rise again, both average low and
high temperatures were above average. 2) Rainfall was average in November 2017, as well as the
three prior months, but falls below average in December 2017. By January 2018, rainfall was
average again but snowfall was over eleven inches above average, perhaps contributing to the
lack of activity rebound.
In addition to that observation, it’s also clear that deer activity was significantly lower in
2016 in comparison to 2017. Climate related reasons for this could be: 1) While there’s no direct
deer activity logged for January 2016, that month experienced slightly less than average snow
but over thirteen inches more than its average rainfall. In January 2017, however, rainfall was
average and snowfall was only slightly above average. This could have hindered the January
2016 population. 2) 2017, as a year, had more above average high temperatures compared to
2016. 3) The months where 2016 deer activity does trump 2017 deer activity, July and
November, 2016 had higher average low and high temperatures. This could suggest that the high
temperatures that carried to November 2016 but not November 2017 could have influenced more
deer activity. November 2017 had below average low temperatures while November 2016 had
above average.
Figure One:

Figure Two:
 Then observing the data from the combination of three sites from May 2015-May 2017 in
figures three and four, rises and falls in deer activity are apparent as well. One note is that at this
site, from January 2016-February 2016, deer activity did drop. This could further suggest that
when looking at the data from Figures 1-2 that lacked January 2016, the high rainfall in that
month may have had an effect on later activity. November 2017 sees a rise in this data set as
well, further suggesting the assumptions made from the Figures 1-2.
Within this data, it’s clear that deer activity spiked in July for 2015 too. In June 2015,
temperatures were average or only slightly above average. By July 2015, the temperature is
above average. In August and September 2015, temperatures remain above average and deer
populations drop again. Looking at 2016, deer activity drops and temperature remain above
average in August and September as well. However, it raises again in October and remains high.
October and November of 2015 and 2016 remain above average in relation to temperature.
However, the highs of temperature experienced in August and September could be considered
heatwaves, while October and November would simply be considered high average
temperatures. This could suggest that hotter summers make deer activity lower but consistent,
while hotter fall and winters make it easier for deer to have abundance of forage for longer thus
increasing activity in months it may otherwise lower.
May 2017 has a drop in activity as well. Much like January 2016, there were significantly
higher than average levels of rainfall, further suggesting that this could drop deer activity.

Figure Three:

Figure Four:
Figure 5: Table of Average High and Low Temperatures in F and Average Rainfall and
Snowfall
 Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun July Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec

2015 77.5 80.5 84.6 86.8 82.3 66.4 61.6 59.0

55.4 63.3 68.2 64.7 60.9 45.2 40.7 42.3
.71 8.36 6.59 1.25 1.60 3.39 3.66 5.44
0

2016 43.4 47.4 58.1 61.4 68.9 81.6 86.8 88 80.2 68.3 59.8 47.7
23.9 28.8 37.5 39.1 52.1 60.4 69.3 68.4 61.8 48.0 36.8 29.3
2.84 4.51 3.12 2.91 6.68 2.31 8.83 1.10 5.29 3.06 1.08 3.29
16.7 3.90 5.11 1.81 0
3

2017 46.1 53.6 51.8 67.9 70.6 82.2 86.5 82.7 78.8 72.3 57.7 44.2
30.6 32.5 31.5 47.2 52.3 62.2 68.6 65.1 61.1 52.6 35.9 26.6
4.18 1.37 5.62 2.97` 7.52 2.66 10.0 4.23 4.05 3.89 2.42 1.33
7.16 .31 .20 2 0

2018 41.8 53.2 48.5 61.2 76.7 81.8 87.1 88.0 80.2 66.7 55.0 48.4
22.6 32.5 31.3 39.0 57.4 62.3 68.1 71.5 66.3 50.5 36.5 31.1
3.29 6.43 5.33 3.82 6.97 2.38 5.73 2.96 8.54 5.87 10.5 5.99
14.4 0 9.61 9 4.80
8

2019 42.1 45.9 50.5 66.4 73.3 83.2 89.4 85.5 81.6 69.7 53.9 49.2
23.9 28.1 31.5 46 55.5 63.1 70.0 67.0 60 51.8 32.5 30.2
3.74 4.10 3.93 3.95 3.80 3.58 5.03 1.95 1.37 5.53 1.55 5.69
4.92 6.89 1.18 .51

Aver 42 44 52 62 71 81 85 84 77 67 56 46
ages 24 26 33 42 51 61 67 65 57 46 37 28
3.22 2.87 4.21 3.63 3.35 3.11 3.72 4.11 3.15 3.42 3.27 3.69
5 7 1 4
First Number: Average high
Second Number: Average Low
Third Number: Inches Rainfall
Fourth (Not Included in All): Inches Snow Fall
Dark Red: At least 2.5 F or in. inches above average
Lighter red: 1-2.5 F or in. above average
Lighter Blue: 1-2.5 F or in. below average
Darker Blue: At least 2.4 F or in. above average
Green: Within 1 in or F of average

Discussion
 Changing climate is having an effect on species across the globe. After looking at
white-tailed deer activity in New Jersey based on data from wildlife cameras, some correlation
can be made between rises and falls in activity and weather.
While a longer span of time would be more desirable to track climate effects on activity,
the time sets looked at still displayed correlations. Rainfall that was severely above average
seemed to correlate with a rapid drop in deer activity. Above average high-temperatures in
summer and spring months seemed to lower deer activity all around, while above average
high-temperatures in winter and fall seemed to significantly raise deer activity all around. Like
other studies suggested, high snowfall may have affected the deer. Specifically, in January 2018,
activity may have remained low due to the high snowfall.
With this in consideration, it’s important to consider the possible effects this could have.
Deer having higher than normal activity in fall and winter months due to higher average
temperatures could overgraze the land and affect forest regeneration. High rainfall in certain
months suggests increased humidity, and while the data showed that significantly high rainfall
sometimes correlated with lower deer activity, this means that ticks may be more abundant. The
same can be said for the above average temperatures in winter months. Looking at this
relationship could be important to understanding the potential side effects of Lyme’s Disease
spreading due to activity changes.
However, despite these correlations, the cameras can not fully track the deer population
in the given area of New Jersey. While there is some evidence to suggest deer may be affected by
different weather cases, the forest area containing these cameras experiences several other
potential causes for changes in activity. These other potential causes include: prescribed burns
that could affect deer activity, other land management techniques that could affect deer activity,
and predator identities that were not considered.
` Overall, as climate continues to change it can only be assumed species experiencing the
change will continue to alter behaviors and patterns. While more intensive studies would need to
be done in New Jersey to truly apply this to the local white-tailed deer population, it’s an
important consideration. Management techniques for deers could alter, as well as hunting
seasons if activity becomes higher in non-hunting months due to climate. Considerations for
what effect this could have on tick abundance need to be taken into account as well. While many
studies have concluded changes in behavior are occuring due to climate change, and the data
from the sites suggests some possible correlations between climate change and activity, more
extensive research and studies could better predict the future outcome of the deer population and
how climate change will affect it exactly.

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