Essay Sample about White-tailed Deer

Part I: Description

Located in South Florida there is one of many national parks in the United States called the “Everglades National Park” where the White-tailed Deer lives. There is a little background first you must understand about these deer and why they act a certain way. During the late eighteen hundred to the early two-thousands, hunters were allowed to hunt deer by running their hunting dogs through the everglades meanwhile the hunters would cut the deer off and shoot them down in hoards killing entire families and destroying entire generations. So, the park service decided to buy several thousand deer to repopulate the everglades. Still, to this day there are camps down there which feed the deer as their pets and many tour buggies take tourists on rides to see the deer, baited up with food to the roads. This has caused almost all the deer to become tame and not act naturally as they would have before human interaction. White-tailed Deer as in the name has white fur under their tails that they raise if they feel threatened or scared from predators. This is a defense mechanism so predators attack their hind end instead of the white fur under their chin and down their neck which predators would attack if they were trying to kill them for food. They stand very tall to allow their amazing sense of smell to alert them to any dangers or potential food. This is a very need adaptation because when they lower their head to eat off the ground, they have to split their legs in four directions to get low enough like how a tend is set up, allowing them to be able to spring away in any direction if a predator were to attack them from any angle. Deer have super small legs and hooves which allow them to be super quiet and stealthy to not be heard by predators while being able to run quickly through thick vegetation and swamps of the Everglades with the utmost grace and ease. They also have massive upper legs so that they almost bounce every time they run to navigate through the thick terrain. However, camp owners and hunters clear out large amounts of land to be able to see the deer with ease which also allows predators to get the upper hand on deer without having any vegetation to run through which slows down the predators enough for them to get away. They also have brown fur on their upper bodies to blend them in with the trees while having white and gray-colored underbellies and inner legs which look like the moss on the trees in a wet swamp environment that provided perfect camouflage. The deer almost looked to me as pets they were not raising their tails to me when I watched them while turning their back to me showed they had no fear of humans. However, their narrow snouts and small black noses would twitch as they ate corn off the ground as their huge black eyes would stair through you almost as if looking at something behind you causing a feeling of uneasiness. As if they were safe with you being there but of both our surroundings they were very uneasy with looking ready to spring away at any second with their huge vascular thighs and veiny shoulders. Some sadly seemed to have been hunted by humans during hunting season I could see them way off in the distance without their massive necks with small heads and white ears sticking out of the sharp sawgrass I would have never seen them. I had a feeling of hope for the deer as I left, they bounced off into the swamps back into the natural habitat they came from.

Part II: Explanation

When explaining the White-tailed Deer, I felt the readers need some background as to why the deer act, the way now because it may be different than what they have read or heard from older people that had experiences with them at different times in history. Also, I tried to explain in many details simple observations of the deer because they are simple with their movements and emotions but they can be influenced by a lot and that can vary minute to minute. I have been going down there my whole life and I was trying to stay strictly informative even through my own eyes I have seen the cause and effect of why the deer act a certain way in a particular situation and have seen it change on a dime when something else comes into the situation. I was trying to show the reader how human interaction has changed the deer and why they act the way they do. However, some may be upset by this I tried to bring it back to explain the deer the best I could because it would take several hundred years of no human interaction. Sad to say it in my opinion when there is money to be made giving tours and taxing camp owners while keeping the deer population up by relocation the national park service will keep human interactions allowed instead of closing it off completely and allowing nature to take back over its domain by running its course.