The moon and its various phases are given credit for much animal and fish behavior, including the deer rut. However, Dr. Leonard Lee Rue III, a noted authority on whitetail deer says, “Not so fast.”
Here’s what he said in an interview with VDGIF.
There have been many myths associated with the full moon by humans over the past centuries. Before artificial lighting people paid more attention to the moon, because it was the only light they had at night. Before we assume that the myths started because the primitive people were uneducated, you must remember that you can read today how more crimes are committed on nights of the full moon, that more operations fail because the doctors are affected, how more epileptic and schizophrenic events take place. There are countless other supposed connections. All of these associations have proved to be false. I’ll even give you one more.
“During the 1980s and 90s, I was crisscrossing the country lecturing about whitetail deer at Buck-O-Ramas, Big Buck Shows, Hunting Jamborees etc. I became friends with many of the other lecturers and show people, but I don’t remember who was the first to tell me about the phase of the moon and how it affected deer hunting. Nor do I remember what year I first heard of it. The idea sprouted like mushrooms after a rain. I mean it was the secret that hunters had been searching for, for generations I was told. They had it all spelled out. Tons of books were written; stacks of DVDs were made and sold. Some lecturers couldn’t keep up with the demand for their services.
When I was asked at my lectures for any input I had on hunting by the phase of the moon, I gave the same answer then that I do today. There is no truth to any of it. A full moon event that occurs, and is realistic, is the full moon of May, which creates the highest tides of the year, prompting the horseshoe crabs to come up on the beach in the Delaware Bay area and lay their eggs. Shorebirds from South America arrive at that precise time and glut upon the eggs, layering enough fat on their bodies that allows them to complete their journey to the Arctic, where they nest each summer.
Most of the wild creatures that we know however, are guided by the photo period which is the amount of daylight in any given 24-hour day. Photoperiodism determines when birds and animals molt, when they migrate, when they breed, etc. One of the most famous examples of this feature is the return each year of the cliff swallows from their winter range in Argentina to their summer nesting spot at Mission San Juan Capistrano, California on March 19. They have done this religiously for several centuries, and that has absolutely nothing to do with the moon.
Hunters want to know when the “peak of the rut” occurs, because that is the time when they have the best chance of shooting a buck. That’s true. But the time of the rut occurs at different times in different places for different deer, and they occur regularly in those places year after year.
Fawns have to be born in the northern portion of the deer’s range the latter week in May or the first week in June, because that is the time of the peak vegetative growth which the does need to produce the milk they need for their fawns. The deer in the southern states have a longer, usually later peak, because they do not have the severe winters to contend with. I have found that the peak breeding seasons for whitetails in Texas was the first week in January. Deer near the Canadian border, in either country, breed a little later because their spring occurs later. Deer living near the equator are capable of breeding in any month of the year as their weather is basically the same year-round. There is no reason for a peak period.
In his studies, Dr. Rue had observed doe that bred on November 9th year after year, every year, no matter what the phase of the moon. My friends, the Space’s, at one time had one of the largest mink farms in the country. Fred Space told me that the individual female mink bred on the same day every year and their daughters would breed on that same day when they matured. That had nothing to do with the moon. That was genetics.
Bottom line?
The peak of the rut – and much other fish and animal activity – is not influenced by the phase of the moon.