Black-tailed Deer

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Black-tailed deer

Black-tailed deer at Alum Rock Park in northern California.

Kingdom:	Animalia
Phylum:	Chordata
Class:	Mammalia
Order:	Artiodactyla
Suborder:	Ruminantia
Family:	Cervidae
Subfamily:	Capreolinae
Genus:	Odocoileus
Species:	O. hemionus
Subspecies:	O. h. columbianus

Trinomial name

Odocoileus hemionus columbianus
Richardson, 1829

Late July near Apiary, Oregon

Like all deer, black-tailed deer are herbivores.

Male black-tailed deer, like this one from Olympic National Park, develop antlers in the summer.

The Black-tailed deer, or Blacktail deer, (Odocoileus hemionus) is a species of deer found in western North America, specifically the Pacific Northwest region.

Black-tailed deer once ranged at least as far as Wyoming. In Francis Parkman's The Oregon Trail, an eyewitness account of his 1846 trek across the early West, while within a two-days ride from Fort Laramie, Parkman writes of shooting what he believes to be an elk, only to discover that he has killed a Black-tailed Deer.

It is sometimes classified as a subspecies of the mule deer, as reflected in its scientific name Odocoileus hemionus columbianus as compared to the Rocky Mountain mule deer's Odocoileus hemionus hemionus. However this classification is not widely followed.

The Black-tailed deer is currently common in western Oregon and Washington as well as northern California. There remains confusion, however, over its proper classification. It is a very popular game animal. It thrives on the edge of the forest, as the dark forest lacks the underbrush and grasslands that the deer prefers as food, and completely open areas lack the hiding spots and the cover it prefers for harsh weather. It often is most active at dawn and dusk, and is frequently involved in collisions with automobiles.