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Oregon Mule Deer Ochoco Winter Ranges

The Ochoco mule deer herd has overlapping migration corridors and summer ranges, but can be separated into three general subherds based on winter range locations. During spring, mule deer in the northern subherd use winter ranges north of the Maury Mountains, near Crooked River and the Ochoco Reservoir, and either migrate farther north to the Ochoco Mountains and Laughlin Table or east, past Twelvemile Table to the foothills of Snow Mountain. Mule deer in the middle subherd winter south of the Maury Mountains and have ranges near Bear Creek, Smoky Butte, and South Fork Crooked River. Some of the middle subherd, like the northern subherd, travel east to the base of Snow Mountain, Green Butte, and Juniper Ridge. Others migrate south to Sears Canyon, the Paulina Mountains, and the Oregon High Desert. Mule deer in the southern subherd have winter ranges adjacent to U.S. Highway 20 and migrate south to summer ranges along the Glass Buttes and the edge of the High Desert region. Habitats are similar across the Ochoco herd management unit where big sagebrush and mountain big sagebrush give way to encroaching western juniper followed by stands of ponderosa pine, lodgepole pine, and other mixed-conifer species as elevations increase. However, winter and residential ranges for the southern subherd feature more low sagebrush and agriculture and the summer ranges are less forested than the other two subherds. The Ochoco mule deer herd faces several challenges, including extreme to exceptional droughts that can force mule deer to compete with feral horses for water and high-quality browse. Home ranges and high-use migration corridors overlap the Liggett Table HMA and Big Summit Wild Horse Territory, which contain estimates of 170 and 130 feral horses, respectively—far more than the maximum AMLs of 25 and 57 horses (BLM, 2023b; K. Kern, U.S. Forest Service, written commun., 2023). The Ochoco herd also inhabits the Maury and Ochoco WMUs, which were included in the five-year Mule Deer Initiatives for 2010 and 2015, respectively, to improve conditions for mule deer, primarily through habitat restoration (ODFW 2015, 2020). Since improvement efforts started in 2010, ODFW, BLM, and NRCS SGI have worked together to remove 150,931 acres (61,079 ha) of western juniper and treat 5,912 acres (2,392 ha) with prescribed burns. Additionally, they completed 26 water development projects and constructed 24.28 mi (39.08 km) of wildlife-friendly fencing to protect riparian areas for mule deer fawning habitat and improve cattle distributions. These mapping layers show the location of the winter ranges for mule deer (Odocoileus hemionus) in the Ochoco population in Oregon. They were developed from 180 winter sequences collected from a sample size of 87 animals comprising GPS locations collected every 3-13 hours.

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Author(s) Matthew J Kauffman orcid, Blake H Lowrey orcid, Jennifer L McKee orcid, Travis Allen, Chloe Beaupre orcid, Jeffrey Beck orcid, Scott Bergen, Justin Binfet, Shelly Blair, James W Cain orcid, Peyton Carl, Todd Cornish orcid, Michelle Cowardin, Rachel Curtis, Melia DeVivo, Jennifer Diamond, Katie Dugger orcid, Orrin Duvuvuei, C.J. Ellingwood, Darby Finley, Jessica Fort, Eric Freeman, Ian Freeman, Jeff Gagnon, Emily Gelzer orcid, Jacob Gray, Evan Greenspan orcid, Curtis Hendricks, Valerie Hinojoza-Rood, Matt Jeffress, Carolyn Kyle, Zack Lockyer, Cody McKee, Jerod Merkle orcid, Jerrod Merrell, Matt Mumma, Jake Powell, Craig Reddell, Adele Reinking orcid, Robert Ritson, Sierra Robatcek, Benjamin Robb orcid, Brianna Russo orcid, Hall Sawyer orcid, Cody Schroeder, Elissa Slezak, Scott Sprague, Erik Steiner orcid, Alethea Steingisser, Tom Stephenson, Nicole Tatman, Kaitlyn Taylor, Don Whittaker, Travis Zaffarano
Publication Date 2025-02-06
Beginning Date of Data 2015
Ending Date of Data 2023
Data Contact
DOI https://doi.org/10.5066/P1YJCCQA
Citation Kauffman, M.J., Lowrey, B.H., McKee, J.L., Allen, T., Beaupre, C., Beck, J., Bergen, S., Binfet, J., Blair, S., Cain, J.W., Carl, P., Cornish, T., Cowardin, M., Curtis, R., DeVivo, M., Diamond, J., Dugger, K., Duvuvuei, O., Ellingwood, C., Finley, D., Fort, J., Freeman, E., Freeman, I., Gagnon, J., Gelzer, E., Gray, J., Greenspan, E., Hendricks, C., Hinojoza-Rood, V., Jeffress, M., Kyle, C., Lockyer, Z., McKee, C., Merkle, J., Merrell, J., Mumma, M., Powell, J., Reddell, C., Reinking, A., Ritson, R., Robatcek, S., Robb, B., Russo, B., Sawyer, H., Schroeder, C., Slezak, E., Sprague, S., Steiner, E., Steingisser, A., Stephenson, T., Tatman, N., Taylor, K., Whittaker, D., and Zaffarano, T., 2025, Oregon Mule Deer Ochoco Winter Ranges: U.S. Geological Survey data release, https://doi.org/10.5066/P1YJCCQA.
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Metadata Date 2025-02-06
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Harvest Source: ScienceBase
Harvest Date: 2025-02-07T05:07:48.543Z