My bet is that the most heavily visited section of Great Smoky Mountains National Park is Cades Cove. According to Park Service literature, more than two million people visit the Cove each year. Via a one-way 11-mile loop road, those visitors easily access restored home sites and churches from the 1800s and early 1900s, as well as trailheads for seven hiking trails, including the trail to a Park icon, Abrams Falls. Traveling the loop road at a leisurely pace can transport one back in time to the high point in Cades Cove history when it was a thriving mountain farming community of around 130 families. Even after the Cove became part of the national park in 1934, a few residents remained. But by 1944, most had moved out and the last school in the Cove was closed. Long before Cades Cove was settled by whites, Native Americans--primarily Cherokee-- hunted deer, bear, elk and bison in the Cove. Some Cherokee trails into the area are still visible today.

Elk and bison are long gone from Cades Cove, but plentiful whitetail deer and black bear remain. It is estimated that only about 30 deer remained in the area when the land was purchased for the national park, and those were in the mountains above the Cove. Under protection afforded by the Park, deer began to flourish. Soon, the herd grew to an unsustainable level; by the mid-1980s, it numbered over one thousand. But conditions changed. Predators returned. Coyotes have been present since the 1980s, and black bears-- never completely absent--grew in numbers. Bears and the occasional European wild boar kill fawns. Mostly because of this increased predation, the deer population dropped to a more sustainable level.

Wildlife in the Cove, including whitetails, are well-habituated to humans, especially those cruising by in vehicles. If their personal space is respected, they are also reasonably tolerant of humans on foot. Driving slowly down Hyatt Lane in the Cove, I noticed this fellow in the early morning October chill. He was in no hurry, and allowed me time to set up camera, lens and tripod and move into position. For several minutes, it was almost as if the deer was playing a game, revealing just enough of himself to keep me interested and following at the respectful distance my 500 mm lens allowed, but keeping much of himself camouflaged in the tall, dead grasses. Or maybe he was just a bit camera shy. Either way, he eventually tired of the encounter and silently, almost as if by magic, he disappeared completely from view. I photographed several much more cooperative deer that day in the Cove, but the interaction I experienced with this careful eight-pointer makes this my favorite whitetail image.