There’s been some discussion lately about if cell cameras spook big ole mature bucks. The claim is they somehow do, and that regular cameras under the same conditions do not. Indeed, bucks over a certain age are somewhat of a different animal being hyper-wary of anything slightly off in their environment, but is the radio signal transmitted from a cellular camera somehow able to be sensed by these bucks, causing them to then avoid these areas? Despite much speculation from some well-known hunting personalities, the science is pretty solid and clear on this one, and as a science teacher with 22+ years in that field, this one boils down to some pretty basic stuff.
The Whitetail Science: The data transmitted by a cellular camera is in the MegaHertz range, or millions of Hertz in frequency. For a whitetail to sense this, they would need an organ that can detect waves in this frequency range, much like a radio receiver does. The biology of whitetail is very well known, and deer have five main senses just like humans. Although the acuity of these senses are somewhat different compared to humans, they work and detect the same things (sight, smell, hearing, taste, touch). So, can one of the sensory organs in deer pick up the waves emitting by a trail camera? From well-known deer biology, the answer is a firm NO.
The only senses a deer can use to observe waves of any form are hearing and vision, and neither of those come close to detecting the MegaHertz range emitted by a cellular trail camera. Hearing of whitetail as seen in this audiogram, goes to a maximum of 64,000 Hertz (64 KiloHertz), woefully short of Mega or Millions of hertz. So deer in no way can hear a cell signal.
When looking at the well tested vision of deer, it is proven that deer see from the visible orange light wavelength to the ultraviolet wavelength, and this range of vision is far above the MegaHertz frequency range emitted by a cell signal (actually in the TeraHertz range, 6 orders of magnitude higher or 1 million times greater). There is just no physical way that any deer, big ole buck or not, can detect radio signals from cellular trail cameras.
Avoiding Bad Science: When a claim like this is made it’s easy to jump on the bandwagon, but a little critical thought easily helps us avoid that mistake. For a claim such as this to be scientific all you need is a test for its wrongness – can you prove the stated claim wrong? If you cannot do this, it is just not anything scientific or provable, and is similar to saying there’s “alien life out there somewhere,” or that “bigfoot exists we just can’t see him.” So, if someone is claiming “well some deer can detect cell cameras, but some can’t,” they are claiming something unprovable, unscientific, and completely invalid.
There could easily be an objective, scientific test done that eliminates every variable other than the radio signal to see if deer avoid it, which should be done by an actual scientist for objectivity. However, it’s pretty easy to show that mature bucks don’t avoid trail cameras by simply showing a mature buck appearing on a cellular camera more than once, and the internet is full of them (here’s one, and I have many others myself).
The Actual Cause: Common sense and a bit of science points to the actual reason a deer may avoid an area where a trail camera is placed, and it usually has to do with one thing – human error. Yes, we all make mistakes, and a big ole buck is less likely to tolerate these mistakes or errors in placing our trail cameras than a younger deer. These errors would be putting cameras somewhere they can be seen, leaving scent in the area or on the camera, or potentially having a noisy camera (for tips on properly setting trail cameras without detection, read HERE). Smell, vision, hearing, these are all known senses of whitetail, and the obvious answer when it comes to deer avoiding our trail cameras, cellular or not.
