Hunters dress to outwit deer

GLENVILLE, N.Y. -- Covered in his old forest camouflage, Steve Balser proved he's nearly invisible to humans. His hunting partner walked within 25 feet and didn't see him.

"I'm just not that sure about deer," Balser said.

His suspicions are backed by scientists who have studied the sensory advantages deer have over hunters. Hence the continuing quest for strategies and camouflage that will tip the odds in hunters' favor.

Balser's pants, jacket, hat and mask have brown, gray and green patterns that resemble the autumn hardwood forests of upstate New York. Though he also can sit quietly, the longtime outdoorsman is pretty sure that his human smell is a dead giveaway to wildlife, despite garments meant to conceal that as well.

Researchers studying animal vision and behavior say that prey have evolutionary advantages in perception, triggering their decisions to run or hide. Science's understanding, based on biological analysis and behavior, isn't complete, but it supports several hunter theories, including that superior sense of smell, which deer use to communicate, find food and avoid predators.

"The most important thing is to watch the wind. ... Anything downwind doesn't exist to your nose," said Dr. Karl Miller, a professor of wildlife ecology and management at the University of Georgia.

And though deer probably hear only a little better than people in the higher frequencies, they have a better sense of unusual sounds and large external ears that help them localize the source, he said.

Looking harmless

Scientists say you also have to appear initially to be something that's not a threat.

That led to modern camouflage, evolving from red and black checked coats that broke up a hunter's silhouette to clothing patterns that mimic the fields and forests, to raggedy suits that resemble a fluttering leaf and brush pile, to digitally designed clothing meant to fool a deer's eye into seeing nothing recognizable at all.

"Based on some very preliminary stuff we've done, deer don't see quite as clearly as we do," said Miller, who is also a hunter. "They don't see 20/20. That's not their purpose - to see detail. Their purpose is to see movement."

That, said Miller, co-author of a 2008 paper on the visual specialization of whitetails, is something they do well.

"They have a harder time identifying an object, but as soon as you move on a deer, it busts you," he said.

Different vision

Deer also see far better than people in dim light and have a larger pupil. Like dogs and horses, they have a reflective layer behind the retina that causes light to hit their photoreceptor rods and cones twice. With big eyes on both sides of their head that don't constantly move like human eyes, they have a 300-degree field of vision, giving them an advantage in detecting motion even at the periphery, Miller said.

In a 2005 paper in the journal Equine Ophthalmology, researchers Paul Miller and Christopher Murphy identified the vision issue for prey animals, processing a vast amount of information for the important bits that require attention.

"A critical aspect of vision is that an object (a wolf, for example), is identified as separate from its surroundings (dense vegetation)," they wrote. "Because this distinction is so important for survival, animals (including humans) with normal vision, can 'see' an object if it differs sufficiently from its surroundings in any one of five different aspects: luminance, motion, texture, binocular disparity (depth), or color."

A hunter's tactics

Cal Welch estimated that in 53 years of hunting he has shot at least 20 deer, though not three that came within 25 feet during turkey season.

"I've found that even wearing orange, when you don't move, the deer don't see you," he said.

He also has found he can raise his rifle or pivot very slowly without alarming the animals. He had been told by an old hunter not to wear anything shiny that can reflect light, or blue jeans.

There's scientific support for both points, that deer see shininess in the bright part of the spectrum and see color, though in a more limited range than people. They have photo pigments on their cones for blues and yellows, making blue blobs a likely cause for alarm.

Blaze orange is probably as a less intense color to deer, and there are often a lot of oranges in the autumn woods, but you need to break up blaze orange with a pattern so it doesn't look to a deer like a large, strange blob, Welch said.

"Animals take inventory. Say you definitely use some kind of mimicry camouflage, it's something the deer processes," said Dr. Jay Neitz, professor of vision science at the University of Washington. "It may be the pile of leaves that was not there before."

New technology

Neitz consulted with W.L. Gore & Associates for a gray-and-tan digital camouflage new to the market this year with a large pattern to disguise the symmetry and silhouette of a hunter and a micro pattern meant to make the hunter fade into something unremarkable to deer.

"You want to be able to break up the pattern so whether you're not moving or you are moving, what the animal sees never turns into a recognizable form," he said.

If you do that and stay down wind, you've got a shot.

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