Could Ohio's state animal be any cuter? Ashton tells us all about the white-tailed deer!
Class Discussion Questions:
1) Choose a mammal to be your community's official mammal. Justify your choice.
2) Explain why dollars are called "bucks."
Read the Script:
Awe, oh, I'm just fawning over this little cutie. Did you know that Ohio has an official State Mammal? It's the white-tailed deer.
Actually it's not just our State Mammal, we share this designation with 11 other states, too. That makes it the most popular State Animal symbol. See, they live just about everywhere in the Americas from Canada down to Peru and Bolivia, but Ohio has a special connection to the white-tailed deer. Our nickname, the Buckeye State, it's directly related to it.
See, a buck is a male deer, and back in the day Native Americans thought the nut of the Buckeye tree looked a lot like the eye of a buck. Along the way, the name for the tree got associated with the people of Ohio and well, it just stuck.
So maybe you're wondering, well, if a buck is male deer, what's a female? A doe, of course. And baby deer are called fawns. Something neat about fawns, they're born with white spots as they grow up though, the spots fade away.
All of these deer have bright, white fur on the underside of their tails. They use their tails to signal warning when they sense danger. You can also see their flashing white tails as they run. They're speedy guys, able to run as fast as 40 miles per hour and jump over nine feet high.
It's no wonder that they were an important animal to the native Americans. They'd of used deer meat for food, deer fur and skins for clothing, and even deer bones and antlers for tools. Spiritual leaders would even wear antlers in ceremonies.
European settlers valued the deer for many of the same reasons. In fact, they used deer skins like money to trade and barter for supplies. Buck skins tended to be worth more than doe skins because bucks are usually larger. Did you ever wonder why a buck means the same thing as a dollar? Now I bet you can figure out why.
Unfortunately, with all that hunting going on, the deer population shrunk steadily until 1904 when there were no more white-tailed deer in Ohio. Efforts to bring them back in the State gradually helped to rebuild the population and by the middle of the 1900s, there were deer again in all of Ohio's counties.
People today still hunt deer in Ohio for food and for their fur, but the government helps regulate hunting so that the deer population doesn't get too low. That's lucky for us, because I'm always on the lookout for one of these guys in person.
Learn a little more... with a link!
- Website Article: Ohio Department of Natural Resources, Wildlife, White-tailed Deer | Get the scoop on deer that are in your backyard.
- Website Article: Ohio History Central, Ohio's State Mammal - White-tailed Deer | Learn more about our state animal.
- Website Article: Wildlife Education & Directory of Wildlife Experts, Ohio Wildlife Animal Control | Can people, deer & Ohio’s other wildlife co-exist.