Lunar Legends: Does the Moon Influence Buck Activity?

White-tailed deer, like most animals, are active each day to gather the food they need to maintain their bodies and sustain life. The “holy grail” for deer hunters is finding a pattern with environmental conditions that would predict when deer move relatively more, causing them to be increasingly visible to hunters, and allowing hunters to more effectively schedule when they hunt. There are plenty of candidate theories in popular and scientific articles, attributing peaks in deer movement and sightings to changes in environmental conditions including temperature, barometric pressure, wind speed, and the phase and position of the moon.

We used 48 white-tailed deer bucks equipped with GPS collars over 2 years in central Mississippi to compare these moon theories with any changes in buck movement behavior. The GPS collars recorded locations every 15 minutes from September through February. We analyzed the buck data using two conditions that should be related to buck movement and, therefore, more visible to hunters. First, we examined bedding time—if a buck is bedded, he’s not moving and not visible to hunters. Second, we examined their movement rate when the bucks decided to move. That is, over a standardized period of time, did the buck move 50 yards or 500 yards? The more bucks are moving, the more visible they should be to hunters.

There are other conditions that could also be influencing buck movement behavior, and we had to eliminate those causes to make sure any changes in buck behavior were actually related to the moon. For example, we had to remove the influence of the rut, or the opening day of firearm season, to isolate the moon’s influence. We did this by comparing a buck to his individual movement patterns.

Download the full PDF above to see the results!