NEBRASKAland Magazine is dedicated to outstanding photography and informative writing with an engaging mix of articles and photos highlighting Nebraska’s outdoor activities, parklands, wildlife, history and people.
Issue link: http://mag.outdoornebraska.gov/i/581251
NOVEMBER 2015 • NEBRASKAland 35 The Frenchman unit is also at the heart of another management strategy biologists have employed since 2010 in this and three other units – the Platte, Buffalo and Republican – deemed part of the Mule Deer Conservation Area. High permit demand in the Frenchman unit was increasing, leading many hunters who didn't draw a permit for the November firearm season to pick up a muzzleloading rifle and a permit for that December season. In response, a special permit is now required to harvest mule deer bucks in these units which allows hunters to choose the season in which they hunt. Archery was initially included. It's Complicated Nebraska's mule deer don't face some of the dire problems they do in other states. Urban sprawl, and its accompanying development, has pushed deer out of the lowlands of the foothills of Colorado – from Colorado Springs to Denver to Fort Collins – and degraded their habitat in the mountain valleys where they wintered. In Wyoming, an increasing network of roads servicing oil and gas wells has brought more noise to once quiet wild lands, fragmented habitat and made it easier for hunters to get to deer. Some deer do move between summer and winter range in Nebraska. Two does in a CWD-related study of radio- collared deer in western Nebraska moved 60 miles between their winter range near the North Platte River in Morrill County and their summer range in the Sandhills southeast of Alliance, where they went to birth their fawns. In the mountain states, however, seasonal migrations from the high country to wintering areas at lower elevations are often fraught with man- made hazards, most notably busy highways. Few Nebraska winters are harsh enough to cause direct losses to mule deer, which sometimes starve in the mountains when heavy snow covers food. There are plenty of factors in play that affect our state's mule deer, though. Widespread shooting and poisoning of coyotes and other predators during much of the last century helped boost mule deer herd growth. These days, coyotes prey on deer enough that biologists see increased recruitment when outbreaks of mange cut coyote numbers. Grasslands continue to be converted to cropland, both native and those enrolled in the CRP. Drought can cut fawn production and survival. Massive wildfires in the Pine Ridge and Niobrara River Valley may provide a boost to mule deer herds. Pine forests along the Niobrara had become so overgrown that mule deer were seldom found in the canyons above the river. They are starting to move back, taking advantage of the flush of grasses and forbs that are growing there. While not as overgrown, the fires also opened up heavily forested expanses of the Pine Ridge. Biologists believe previously mentioned issues have slowed the recovery of mule deer in these areas, but that numbers will begin to climb. In the western edge of the Pine Ridge, it appears as though some mule deer – and elk – moved to greener pastures in Wyoming immediately after the fire and did not return. Clearing of cedars in the Loess Canyons in southwestern Nebraska has restored some mule deer habitat, but not yet at a large enough scale to greatly influence mule deer numbers. Apart from habitat loss, biologists can only speculate how much any of these factors are affecting the state's mule deer, and why they are doing so well in some units and poorly in others. In hopes of finding answers to these questions, Commission biologists have proposed a multi-year study that would track mule deer does and fawns and to determine survival rates, habitat use and seasonal movements. If funding is approved, the study, the most intensive to date of mule deer in the state, would begin in 2017. Already underway is an aerial winter survey of the Pine Ridge and adjacent grasslands in northwestern Nebraska that aims to get a more reliable estimate of the mule deer population from which upward or downward trends can be based. Next year will be the third year for the five-year project. Wildlife managers have seen a growing desire by many landowners to protect mule deer, whether their numbers are trending upward or downward. In some places where numbers haven't changed, individuals who not long ago were saying there are too many mule deer are now saying there aren't enough. Few use the opportunity to harvest a mule deer doe on a landowner permit. As is the case wherever a species' range ends, managing its numbers is a complicated issue. But mule deer have persisted. And with the likelihood that the remaining grassland habitats will persist, especially the Sandhills, mulies will continue to be a fixture on the plains of Nebraska, perched high on a hilltop, surveying the landscape. ■ Information for this report was provided by Nebraska Game and Parks Commission wildlife division staff, including: Kit Hams, Big Game Program Manager; Todd Nordeen, Big Game Disease & Research Program Manager; District Managers Tom Welstead, Lance Hastings and Pat Molini, and biologist Ben Rutten. Mule deer does are less likely to have twins than whitetails, and breed at a later age, contributing to a species productivity that is roughly one-third less.