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Spatial Extent of Data

USGS Data Source

Migration Routes of Mule Deer in Sheep Mountain Herd in Wyoming

Mule deer (Odocoileus hemionus) within the Sheep Mountain herd winter in the East and Northeast foothills of the snowy range mountains in Southeastern Wyoming. The sheep mountain herd is mainly migratory with very few individuals staying on winter range year around. Winter ranges are a mix of grassland and sagebrush hills, often free of snow from wind. During migration, animals that have been tracked with GPS collars (n = 56 females) travel an average one-way distance of nearly 20 miles (32 km), with some animals migrating over 50 miles (80 km). The herd, which numbers around 7,600 has a variety of summer destinations. Some individuals migrate across the snowy range to the west. Others migrate into Colorado, summering in the Rawah mountains. Others migrate short distances into higher elevation foothills of the Snowy Range. Many individuals traverse the eastern front of the snowy range, particularly West of Sheep Mountain and West and Southwest of Jelm Mountain. Summer ranges generally consist of lodgepole pine forests inter-mixed with aspen and riparian habitats. The forests of these summer ranges have been severely impacted by bark beetle over the last decades. More recently, large forest fires have burned some of the summer ranges of this herd. Fawn recruitment most years meets the bare minimum needed for the population to remain stable. The majority of the herd residing north of highway 130 crosses Interstate 80 to access winter range. Successfully crossing Interstate 80 is essential to the persistence of these segments of the herd. Some crossing locations have been successfully mitigated, but most have not. Besides Interstate 80, urban development of private lands on winter range is a concern. Much of this herd’s summer range is on USFS and BLM lands, but most of their winter range is on private lands. In the southern portion of this herd there has been an expansion of housing development built in critical winter range habitats, which removes critical forage, adds stress, as well as increases disease transmission due to homeowners feeding wildlife. These data provide the location of migration routes for mule deer in the Sheep Mountain population in Wyoming. They were developed from 166 migration sequences collected from a sample size of 56 animals comprising GPS locations collected every 2 hours.

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Author(s) Matthew J Kauffman orcid, Blake H Lowrey orcid, Jeffrey Beck, Jodi Berg orcid, Scott Bergen, Joel Berger orcid, James W Cain orcid, Sarah Dewey, Jennifer Diamond, Orrin Duvuvuei, Julien Fattebert orcid, Jeff Gagnon, Julie Garcia, Evan Greenspan orcid, Embere Hall, Glenn Harper, Stan Harter, Kent Hersey, Pat Hnilicka, Mark Hurley, Lee Knox, Art Lawson, Eric Maichak, James Meacham, Jerod Merkle orcid, Arthur Middleton, Daniel Olson, Lucas Olson, Craig Reddell, Benjamin S Robb orcid, Gabe Rozman, Hall Sawyer orcid, Cody Schroeder, Brandon Scurlock orcid, Jeff Short, Scott Sprague, Alethea Steingisser, Nicole Tatman
Publication Date 2022-04-07
Beginning Date of Data 2017-01-01
Ending Date of Data 2019-12-31
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DOI https://doi.org/10.5066/P9TKA3L8
Citation Kauffman, M.J., Lowrey, B.H., Beck, J., Berg, J., Bergen, S., Berger, J., Cain, J.W., Dewey, S., Diamond, J., Duvuvuei, O., Fattebert, J., Gagnon, J., Garcia, J., Greenspan, E., Hall, E., Harper, G., Harter, S., Hersey, K., Hnilicka, P., Hurley, M., Knox, L., Lawson, A., Maichak, E., Meacham, J., Merkle, J., Middleton, A., Olson, D., Olson, L., Reddell, C., Robb, B.S., Rozman, G., Sawyer, H., Schroeder, C., Scurlock, B., Short, J., Sprague, S., Steingisser, A., and Tatman, N., 2022, Migration Routes of Mule Deer in Sheep Mountain Herd in Wyoming: U.S. Geological Survey data release, https://doi.org/10.5066/P9TKA3L8.
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Metadata Date 2022-04-07
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Harvest Source: ScienceBase
Harvest Date: 2024-09-09T13:42:32.725Z