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Oregon Mule Deer Beulah-Malheur Winter Ranges

With 204 GPS-collared mule deer, the Beulah-Malheur herd is one of the most extensively recorded mule deer herds in Oregon. Mule deer primarily winter along the Malheur River and the Stinkingwater Mountains, with some as far south as the Owyhee River. Winter ranges are covered by Artemisia tridentata (big sagebrush), grassland, and encroaching Juniperus occidentalis (western juniper). Although spatially dispersed, much of the Beulah-Malheur herd collectively migrates northwest to reach summer ranges across the upper elevations of the Malheur National Forest, Pedro Mountain, and Cottonwood Mountain. Primary summer range vegetation includes A. t. vaseyana (mountain big sagebrush), Pinus ponderosa (ponderosa pine), and western juniper with mixed-conifer forests and mountain shrub communities at higher elevations. In 2014, the Buzzard Complex fire burned approximately 398,596 acres (161,306 ha) between Riverside, Oregon and State Route 78, allowing Taeniatherum caput-medusae (medusahead) and other invasive annual grasses to proliferate in areas originally lacking perennial plant cover. Mule deer cross several major roadways during migration, including U.S. Highway 20, U.S. Route 26, and U.S. Route 395, while Interstate 84 is a complete barrier on the east. U.S. Highway 20 transects winter ranges for both migratory and resident mule deer and the section between mileposts 135 and 258 along the Malheur River accounted for an average of 179 mule deer-vehicle collisions each year from 2010 to 2022. The Burns-Paiute Tribe is working with the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife (ODFW) and Oregon Department of Transportation (ODOT) to identify wildlife passage solutions on U.S. Highway 20. These mapping layers show the location of the winter ranges for mule deer (Odocoileus hemionus) in the Beulah-Malheur population in Oregon. They were developed from 303 migration sequences collected from a sample size of 179 animals comprising GPS locations collected every 5-13 hours.

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Author(s) Matthew J Kauffman orcid, Blake H Lowrey orcid, Chloe Beaupre orcid, Scott Bergen, Stefanie Bergh, Kevin Blecha orcid, Samantha Bundick, Hunter Burkett, James W Cain orcid, Peyton Carl, David Casady orcid, Corey Class, Alyson B. Courtemanch orcid, Michelle Cowardin, Jennifer Diamond, Catherine Dugger, Orrin Duvuvuei, Joanna Ennis, Julien Fattebert orcid, Michelle Flenner, Jessica Fort, Gary Fralick, Ian Freeman, Jeff Gagnon, David Garcelon, Kyle Garrison, Emily Gelzer, Evan Greenspan orcid, Valerie Hinojoza-Rood, Pat Hnilicka, Andy Holland, Brian Hudgens, Bart Kroger, Art Lawson, Cody McKee, Jennifer A McKee, Jerod Merkle orcid, Tony W Mong, Haley Nelson orcid, Brendan Oates, Marie-Pier Poulin orcid, Craig Reddell, Robert Ritson, Hall Sawyer orcid, Cody Schroeder, Jessie Shapiro, Scott Sprague, Alethea Steingisser, Erik Steiner orcid, Sam Stephens, Patrick R Swazo-Hinds, Blair Stringham, Nicole Tatman, Benjamin Turnock, Cody F Wallace orcid, Don Whittaker, Benjamin Wise, Heiko U Wittmer orcid, Katerina D Wood
Publication Date 2024-04-10
Beginning Date of Data 2015
Ending Date of Data 2022
Data Contact
DOI https://doi.org/10.5066/P9SS9GD9
Citation Kauffman, M.J., Lowrey, B.H., Beaupre, C., Bergen, S., Bergh, S., Blecha, K., Bundick, S., Burkett, H., Cain, J.W., Carl, P., Casady, D., Class, C., Courtemanch, A.B., Cowardin, M., Diamond, J., Dugger, C., Duvuvuei, O., Ennis, J., Fattebert, J., Flenner, M., Fort, J., Fralick, G., Freeman, I., Gagnon, J., Garcelon, D., Garrison, K., Gelzer, E., Greenspan, E., Hinojoza-Rood, V., Hnilicka, P., Holland, A., Hudgens, B., Kroger, B., Lawson, A., McKee, C., McKee, J.A., Merkle, J., Mong, T.W., Nelson, H., Oates, B., Poulin, M., Reddell, C., Ritson, R., Sawyer, H., Schroeder, C., Shapiro, J., Sprague, S., Steingisser, A., Steiner, E., Stephens, S., Swazo-Hinds, P.R., Stringham, B., Tatman, N., Turnock, B., Wallace, C.F., Whittaker, D., Wise, B., Wittmer, H.U., and Wood, K.D., 2024, Oregon Mule Deer Beulah-Malheur Winter Ranges: U.S. Geological Survey data release, https://doi.org/10.5066/P9SS9GD9.
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Metadata Date 2024-04-10
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Citations of these data No citations of these data are known at this time.
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License http://www.usa.gov/publicdomain/label/1.0/
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Harvest Source: ScienceBase
Harvest Date: 2024-07-18T13:40:47.875Z