how long do deer live?

[muskiehunter369]

i live in Ely in NE MN. my roommates and i were talking about how long deer live in the north woods. everyone but me thinks deer could live to be 11 or 12 years old. i think that a deer in this area would be lucky to live to be 8. what do you guys think?

[blakeb]

i have always thought it was around 10 so give or take a couple years for natural variables.

[LightningBG]

It is possible that deer can live to be eleven or twelve years old. But most don't live that long. That is because deer wear their teeth out in about ten years. After that they aren't able to chew their food which adds active enzymes to the digestive process. When this happens, deer weaken and starve to death. Many die early from predators, injuries, accidents, or disease sustained in daily life. In heavily hunted areas of the country, most bucks don't live much past 1 1/2 to 2 1/2 years of age. Optimum biological deer antler development is attained the 5 1/2 to 6 1/2 years of age.

(This info is off some other site, not personal knowledge, I always thought they could live a lot longer than I've posted above.)

[DonBo]

16 months, then they go to live in the freezer.

[lichen fox]

Here's some recent info from the dnr...it comes from their presentation on the impact of wolves on the deer herd...it is info gathered from a 15 year study that included radio collared wolves and radio collared deer as well....

data have shown is that the reason white-tailed deer can thrive, despite wolf predation and hunter harvests, is their strong population performance (survival capacity and reproductive success). The annual average age of females was 5.1 to 7.2 years old, and approximately 13% of the does were 10.5 to 18.5 years old. In the forest zone, on average, does live a lot longer than managers and researchers had ever thought. Coupled with that, the pregnancy rates are very high, 90% in yearlings, and 95-100% in does from 2.5 years old up to at least 15.5 years.

[mrklean]

In minnesota probably about 2 years if there lucky

[Musky Buck]

Trying to get by 5 million deer stands.......not very long.

[Bear55]

16 months, then they go to live in the freezer.

Ha Ha I was just about to say the same thing.

I can't see a wise old bucking living in the wild for more than 8-10 years but I'm sure a few have made it a little longer than that. Does on the other hand can live longer. I don't have the exact numbers but a Deer and Deer hunting article talk about a radio collared does that lived up to 15 years in the wild. They also mentioned something about other doe that lived to 22 years but that might have been in Camp Ripley so they don't see the hunting pressure that the rest of the deer see.

[InTheNorthwoods]

If the question is how long "can" deer live, the answer is "a long time".

If the question is how long "do" deer live, the answer is "until they're dead".

The point is, with a wild deer herd that is subject to the rigors of winter weather, drought, flooding, heat, cold, inconsistent food sources and habitat, hunting pressure, predation, etc., the lifespan of a deer is completely unpredictable. It could be more than ten years, or just as likely, less than ten days.

[WaveWacker]

I've done a bit of whitetail hunting in Saskatchewan and up there the outfitter is always required to send in a jaw bone from the deer taken. They said that a 6 1/2 yr old up there is the oldest that they get. Now in MN I'd have to say that it "potentially" are more then that and would have to say on average 8-10yrs would be it.

I know Texas is a lot higher.

[mabr]

To the question of how long. Captive Deer have lived to over 20 years. If memory serves me correctly there was one up in northern MN that i seen that was 22 YO. It was a Doe. And from my experience of raising them, the Does typically live longer even when Bucks are kept apart.

[rayguy]

In zone 107 a long time as very few have been shot the last two years there.

[DinnerPail]

Back a few years ago my buddy shot a doe that was tagged. We took it to the DNR office in Grand Rapids and they pulled the file on her and she was 13 years old. The person we talked to said at that time they had one out there with a radio collar on and she was 19 at the time. I also shot a buck the year before that that had an ear tag and when I went to the DNR office they pulled the file on him and he was 3 1/2. They informed us they only ear tag the males and radio collar the does as they get better data because the does don't thavel as far and live longer.

[wh1stler]

Dinner Pail --

How big was the rack on your buck?

[Fins-n-feathers]

Until they end up in my freezer.

[JimmyJames]

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