White-tailed deer
Odocoileus virginianus
The most widespread native deer in North America and the dominant large herbivore shaping garden and forest plant communities east of the Rocky Mountains. As selective browsers, white-tailed deer eat the youngest, most tender new leaves and stem tips first, and rely heavily on acorns and other hard mast through autumn and early winter. At the high densities common in much of their range today, sustained browsing suppresses forest understory regeneration and is the central reason deer resistance and browse pressure are recurring design considerations for the woody plants in this catalog.
Conservation
IUCN Red List: Least Concern, with a large and stable to increasing population. Not a conservation concern at the species level; the curation interest is the inverse — managing browse pressure on planted and regenerating vegetation. (The localized Columbian white-tailed deer subspecies, Odocoileus virginianus leucurus, has a separate USFWS listing history and is not the broadly distributed animal described here.)