How Good is a Deer’s Nose and Sense of Smell?
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How good is a deer’s sense of smell? If they rely on this sense above all else to survive, it must be outstanding. Deer hunting often comes down to one thing, beating this keen sense with scent control tactics…but how good is this sense and can it be beat?
Unlike us, deer rely on their nose for survival as well as communication. Deer have 7 different glandular areas on their body. The interdigital, metatarsal, tarsal, forehead, preorbital, nasal, and preputial glands are all understood to help deer in communication. If you have spent a significant amount of hours deer hunting you have seen some of these glands in use. With so many glands, every bit of deer-to-deer language transferred through rubs, scrapes, and urine needs to be noticed and correctly identified. This in part is why a deer’s sense of smell is so good.
Deer have 297 million olfactory scent receptors in their nose…in comparison we have 5 million and dogs have 220 million! In addition deer have the complementary tools that go with this many scent receptors. A deer’s brain devotes a significantly larger area for taking in and determining what a scent is than a human’s brain. And if that wasn’t enough…they have a second nose!
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