Deer's Sense of Sight

How good is a deer's sense of sight? Based on what I've read, heard, and observed. A deer's eyesight is considerably different from ours. Deer can apparently see more, but less detail.

The animal rights people probably don't want to talk about this much, but we are predators. That's why we have both eyes looking forward to help us when 'hunting' our prey.

We have very good forward vision, good depth perception,
and can likely distinguish more colors than any animal.
Note: One in seven men are 'somewhat' color blind, and they
seldom know it. Most women have good color vision.

In the picture here notice the deer's eye placement. Deer are prey animals and have eyes more to the sides of their head. This eye placement allows deer to see us (or a cougar) approach from any angle except directly behind them. But there is much more to understand.

Deer vision is probably somewhat more like a wide angle lens than our (so called) normal lens eyes.
Wide angle means deer see more around them without moving their eyes or head. But what they see may appear smaller, more distant, and less detailed. An eagle has the vision to see great detail at long distance (an eagle eye).

As stated above with a deer's eyes more on the sides of their head, and with wide angle lenses, the deer's sense of vision allows him to see almost everything around without moving his head or eyes much.

But, (this could be important) they won't have good depth perception to their sides or back. They don't have binocular vision when something is on one side because they only see it with one eye until they turn their head. This should limit their ability to see detail, or to separate a hunter from the surroundings. This may help to explain why they don't see a camouflaged hunter at very short range; sometimes.

There are more differences! The deer's eyes are large and are built to gather more light than ours. Somewhat like a larger objective lens on a scope, camera, binoculars... His sense of sight is surely better than ours in dark, low light, and he can probably detect movement more easily than we can. A soon as we try to raise our gun or bow we're often, busted! Very slow movement is usually best.

Some say deer see only black and white, but what I've read says they see the ends of the color spectrum and not the middle colors. This doesn't mean they can't see color, but that they mostly see a contrast between the blue and yellow. Which may be similar to seeing in black and white.

The red and orange colors are not invisible to them, but they probably can't discern red and orange from the surrounding colors like we can. This also leads me to believe a deer's sense of sight can't see or separate visual details very well. Hunter orange camouflage, seems strange to us, but it may be a good idea.

Deer are said to be able to see some of the UV light spectrum (more of the blue than we can). Like everything remotely associated with deer this has been exploited to sell products. Advertisements with pictures showing camouflage clothing glowing like a neon sign have been used. I personally don't believe it is that dramatic, but I do wash my camouflage clothes in soap without UV brighteners.

Like in this picture how they often "spook", and then stop to look back, apparently not knowing what we are. Sometimes they circle to get down-wind and catch our scent.

Their sense of smell may "see" details better, while their sense of sight detects movement (danger) quickly.

We have many more pages
of information.
Find any page easily
with our: Site Map Page

Sense of Sight to Whitetail Deer
Sense of Sight to Score-Your-Hunting.com