Deer awareness map

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Assumptions — model, not magic

This sketch is an educational awareness model, not measured field distances to free-ranging white-tailed deer. There is no peer-reviewed “deer heard / smelled a hunter at X meters” curve for footfalls, whisper, or human scent with known meteorology (see research brief).

Hearing

• Behavioral audiogram: Heffner & Heffner 2010, J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 127:151–158 — best threshold −3 dB SPL at 8 kHz; good sensitivity ~500 Hz–32 kHz.
• Default detection: L_th=+10 dB (broadband quiet-woods alert), M=10 dB masking margin — both engineering assumptions.
• Source SPLs (L_ref @ 1 m) for rustle / footfalls / whisper / gear are assumed from general acoustics charts, not deer-woods measurements.
• Radius from spherical spreading only: r_max = 10^{(L_ref−L_th−M)/20} m (r₀=1 m). Air absorption / foliage loss ignored in this sketch.

Smell

• Drawn as a downwind cone, not a circle. Wind dominates.
• Wind direction, speed bin, and humidity prefill from the same Open-Meteo surface forecast Windmaster uses (current=wind_*_10m). Marked LIVE met when the fetch lands; ASSUMED (270° W, steady, humid) if it fails. Manual override sticks until the next pin or Refresh.
• Cone angles & max ranges follow brief §4.3 / Table C — assumed model knobs (calm 60–90° / 100–300 m; steady humid 20–40° / 300–600 m; strong diluted 10–25° / shorter; dry/hot 50–200 m). Live wind aims the wedge; it does not measure deer detection distance.
• Popular “¼–½ mile” figures are hunter lore; optional 800 m dashed ring is uncertain lore only.
• MSU VOC work characterizes human scent chemistry / sprays — not a calibrated meter-scale detection distance.

Scope

• White-tailed deer (Odocoileus virginianus) awareness ranges only. Educational — no hunting tactics beyond awareness geometry.
• Optional later: ATAK plugin (same model knobs). Spelling: ATAK.

Science source: research-brief.md in this folder.