Summer Diurnal Bed Sites of Coues White-Tailed Deer

We radiotracked 22 Coues white-tailed deer (Odocoileus virginianus couesi) in 1989-90 to characterize summer (May-Aug) diurnal bed sites. Summer is the critical period for Coues white-tailed deer, and bed sites provide thermal cover, enabling deer to maintain body core temperature and water balance during high temperature-low water periods. Human activities cannot be mitigated without characterizing bed sites. Trees were present in 80.3% of bed sites (40-m 2 -circular plot), but occurred in only 33.8% of random plots. Tree density, tree species richness, and tree canopy cover were greater (P < 0.01) in bed sites than in random plots. Tree species were not used (P < 0.01) in proportion to availability for bedding. Distance to nearest tree from bed-site center was less (P < 0.01) than for random plots