Elliott and Barrett looked at the dietary overlap between cattle and three deer species (2 exotic) on the Point Reyes National Seashore, northwest of San Francisco. They found that the two exotic species, axis and fallow deer, had much higher dietary overlap with cattle than black-tailed deer had with any species. The authors felt that the main reason there was so much overlap between the two exotics species and the cattle was due to the fact that the incisors of the exotic deer species were wider and had a cutting edge than those found in native deer. They feel that these deer have evolved in a grazing atmosphere much like cattle, so their foraging preferences will tend to be grasses over forbs.
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