Two forms of black-tailed deer or blacktail deer that occupy coastal woodlands in the Pacific Northwest of North America are subspecies of the mule deer (Odocoileus hemionus). They have sometimes been treated as a species, but virtually all recent authorities maintain they are subspecies. The Columbian black-tailed deer (Odocoileus hemionus columbianus) is found in western North America, from Northern California into the Pacific Northwest of the United States and coastal British Columbia in Canada. The Sitka deer (O. h. sitkensis) is found coastally in British Columbia, southeast Alaska, and southcentral Alaska (as far as Kodiak Island). Range The black-tailed deer lives along the Pacific coast from northern and western California and north to southeastern Alaska. East of the Cascade and Sierra Nevada Ranges in Oregon and California, black-tailed deer are replaced by mule deer which have a different tail pattern. In several northern California counties, including Siskiyou, Tehama, Shasta, and Plumas County (among several others), two or three subspecies of black-tailed deer can be found with overlapping ranges. Within the county of Siskiyou, a north-central county on the California-Oregon border, one may find populations of Columbian black-tailed deer in the majority of the county. However, the range of this population of deer begins to overlap with the Rocky Mountain subspecies (as well as with Rocky Mountain mule deer), in the central and eastern portions of the county. The black-tailed deer is currently common in California, ranging as far south as San Luis Obispo and Santa Barbara County; north into western Oregon, Washington, and coastal and interior British Columbia; and north into the Alaskan panhandle. It is a very popular game animal. Taxonomy All recent authorities maintain it as a subspecies of the mule deer (O. hemionus). Strictly speaking, the black-tailed deer group consists of two subspecies, as it also includes O. h. sitkensis (the Sitka deer). Despite this, the mtDNA of the white-tailed deer and mule deer are similar, but differ from that of the black-tailed deer. This may be the result of introgression, although hybrids between the mule deer and white-tailed deer are rare in the wild (apparently more common locally in West Texas), and the hybrid survival rate is low even in captivity. Ecology These two subspecies thrive on the edge of the forest, as the dark forest lacks the underbrush and grasslands the deer prefer as food, and completely open areas lack the hiding spots and cover