Deer Habitat!! What is your mountain like?

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Grizz

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We all want a better Muley experience on all levels
Micro-management should help
We all know that deer numbers have to increase

I'm concerned about the lack of habitat improvement that would allow this to happen

cheatgrass and thistle have taken over without any mitigation

The BLM habitat project on our mountain only was targeted to produced grass for cattle but it mostly just brought in new invasive thistle. It seems that the BLM and Us Forest are ONLY concerned with cattle production. The mountain I hunt on is overran with cows.

I don't see anything getting better until managers acknowledge the need to improve deer habitat. This fall before the deer hunt, I took a wheeler ride on Salina Mountain. I rode 4 hours through beautiful deer country ...never seen a deer.

Here is my question?????
It would be nice to get a statewide survey.
How is the habitat for deer in your area. Is cheatgrass invading? Is grazing the main focus of your land managers?

Cove and Monroe Mountain> thistle and cheatgrass invasion with overgrazing
Pahvant> overgrazing, lots of fires with cheatgrass invasion
Mineral Mountains> devastating fires, cheatgrass & cricket invasion

no rehab for deer in these areas
 
Don't forget to mention the Fishlake mountain. This area has gone downhill for the last 10 years. It is pressured by so many factors: Overgrazing of cattle that takes up the prime habitat for mule deer; competition with Elk; Predators cougar and coyote, large amounts of pressure from ATV jamboral; and poachers!! This area needs help too!
 
Having worked for one of these agencies, I can tell you that wildlife habitat improvement has been a large focus on the Manti (Price/Ferron Ranger Districts). Winter Range improvements in the form of pinyon-juniper mastications, mountain-brush regeneration, dixie-harrow treatments to promote sagebrush age class diversity, disking/seeding to remove monocultures of grass seedings from the 50-60's, and Rx fire's to promote aspen regeneration. All of this within the past 6 or 7 years.

It really boils down to how proactive the management team is within an agency, if they are sportsmen and care for wildlife. Like anything else, politics are always apart of it too. You can have an agency that treats/improves thousands of acres of habitat every year, or one that does next to nothing but "manage" what's already there.

As far as cattle go that tends to boil down to range managers, and how dedicated they are at making sure rotations are occurring as they should be. I think you'll always see areas that are overstocked and have been overgrazed, just seems to be part of it. The environmentalists don't miss a beat when it comes to cattle, and are usually right on top of fighting to improve range conditions, and remove more cattle from the range....in my experience anyway.


Noxious weeds are a huge problem in many areas. From my experience, it boils down to having adequate funding to employ enough people to stay on top of and get ahead of the problem. For many areas, this is probably not achievable due to how rapid some species have spread throughout the landscape. For many noxious weed species, it takes consecutive years of treatment to eliminate seed beds. Biological control is something that is being used more often, as it has shown results in treating musk thistle and salt cedar. More time and money definitely needs to be invested in the noxious weed problem though.

BowHuntr
 
Where are you getting all this cheatgrass invasion stuff from??? from what you look at??? there is still plenty of veg for deer the cheat grass is the least of your worries... i worked for the state this last year doing veg surveys in utah nevada and idaho... the cheatgrass is doing nothing the only problem you come across with the cheat grass is the fires because its a BIG fuel. Maybe if you got off your 4wheeler and hiked you would find some deer. Its kinda sad what some of utah hunters complain about when they just sit on there wheelers and drive and EXPECT to see deer.
 
>Where are you getting all this
>cheatgrass invasion stuff from??? from
>what you look at??? there
>is still plenty of veg
>for deer the cheat grass
>is the least of your
>worries... i worked for the
>state this last year doing
>veg surveys in utah nevada
>and idaho... the cheatgrass is
>doing nothing the only problem
>you come across with the
>cheat grass is the fires
>because its a BIG fuel.
> Maybe if you got
>off your 4wheeler and hiked
>you would find some deer.
>Its kinda sad what some
>of utah hunters complain about
>when they just sit on
>there wheelers and drive and
>EXPECT to see deer.


A guy wants to start a constructive dialogue and all he gets is belittled.See what being concerned gets you around here.Lundell You are in no way a part of the solution if all you can do is flap that tongue in the breeze.Confrontation with fellow concerned sportsman will surely be the downfall.
 
LAST EDITED ON Dec-30-11 AT 05:52AM (MST)[p]all the darn houses they keep building. one example would be above cody wyoming. tons and tons of winter range for the elk and deer. then they wanted to add the copperleaf subdivsion. the locals said no no no no no no no. well the subdivsion went to a judje in california and got it passed and now there is big ol cabins out there. now the subdivsion is on hold again, the case has gone through the wyoming supreme court a few times. you can do a search on google just type in "copperleaf subdivsion cody wyoming"


but know see less elk and deer on there range
 
>A guy wants to start a
>constructive dialogue and all he
>gets is belittled.See what being
>concerned gets you around here.

Welcome to MM:D
 
I know you're asking about Utah, but in Idaho, cheatgrass has taken over many of our winter and lower summer ranges.

The Christian
 
Cheat grass is an invasive species and it prevents the growth of good deer browse, i.e. antelope bitter brush, big sage and others. There is a lot of data out there about the use of forage kochia out competing cheat grass. Forage kochia is a high protein plant that is popular with mule deer and a great benefit to them in the winter.

We do need to focus on the amount of grasses and increase the shrubs that deer browse on. There does appear to be more grasses on winter ranges that previously had higher concentrations of shrubs.
 
devastating fires????

UMM some of the best deer habitat is on burns.... how are fires devastating?

Dang media has everyone thinking fires are a bad thing. the best elk and deer country in my areas are on burns.
 
in much of the lower elevation arid parts of west fires burn everything and what grows back is cheat grass from Asia, it is poor forage, and outcompetes other varities of plants, it greens up early, dries out early in the year and is subseptable to more fires, its called the fire cheat grass cycle. Cooler weather higher elevation areas are the places where fires can really help with big game forage.
 
LAST EDITED ON Dec-30-11 AT 11:53AM (MST)[p]Buck Strut adds FISH LAKE to the Cheatgrass infestation among a multitude of other problems. Christians adds some Idaho range as infested.

How about your hunting area? Lets get a feel if habitat is just a localized problem or a statewide issue.

Bowhuntr....thanks for letting us know that the BLM/US Forest do care about deer habitat in SOME but not all areas.

lundellhunting7....you know nothing about me as far as getting off my 4 wheeler. I travel far and wide and hike far and wide. It's what I do 24 /7 whenever I have a chance. If you have done vegetation surveys for the state and have not seen cheatgrass then I suggest the state fires you. Why is cheatgrass not an issue when it sucks out the Spring moisure and replaces native vegetation. Deer spend lots of time in the JP zone especially Spring/Fall/Winter. Maybe you can enlighten us on your experience out there in PJ country and explain why cheatgrass is not a relevant range issue? I'm curious where your coming from?

jainoon...thanks for the comment. My main point is that less tags will not produce more deer if the habitat is crappy.

nfh...interesting range issue. Keep us posted


Verticalslope gives some great information
" Cheat grass is an invasive species and it prevents the growth of good deer browse, i.e. antelope bitter brush, big sage and others. There is a lot of data out there about the use of forage kochia out competing cheat grass. Forage kochia is a high protein plant that is popular with mule deer and a great benefit to them in the winter." thanks

theox....I hope you read piper's post. He has it right. I agree that some fires can be good but I understand that these cheatgrass fires burn so hot that minerals are destroyed and that only cheatgrass comesback replacing deer forbs. Again MITIGATION is needed. We have to make that happen from political pressure.

thanks for the comments but I'd like to know if other areas of the state have habitat issues.
 
http://www.muledeerworkinggroup.com/Docs/CPE_Mule_Deer_Habitat_Guidelines.pdf

this is a great document

"The shrubs that deer heavily rely on in the Intermountain
West are disappearing from the landscape, partially because
invasions of exotic plants like cheatgrass (Bromus tectorum)
have increased frequency of fire and resulted in a more
open landscape. In contrast, .... many forested areas are
lacking the natural fire regime
that once opened the canopy and provided for growth of
important deer browse plants. Yet, an intact forest canopy
is important ...
Across these different ecoregions, the core components of
deer habitat are consistent: water, food, and cover. An
important aspect of good mule deer habitat is juxtaposition
of these components; they must be interspersed in such a
way that a population can derive necessary nutrition and
cover to survive and reproduce. We have learned much
about mule deer habitat requirements, but much remains
to be learned. For example, we know cover can be critical
for mule deer survival but quantitative cover requirements
and the optimal balance between cover and food resources
in highly variable environments are mostly unknown.
Mule deer are primarily browsers, with a majority of their
diet comprised of forbs (broad-leaved, non-woody plants)
and browse (leaves and twigs of shrubs and trees). Deer
digestive tracts differ from cattle and elk in that they have
a smaller rumen in relation to their body size and so they
must be more selective in their feeding. Instead of eating
large quantities of low quality feed like grass, deer must
select the most nutritious plants and parts of plants.
Because of this, deer have more specific forage
requirements than larger ruminants.
The presence and condition of the shrub component is an
underlying issue found throughout different ecoregions and
is important to many factors affecting mule deer
populations. Shrubs occur mostly in early successional
habitats; that is, those recently disturbed and going through
the natural processes of maturing to a climax state. This
means disturbance is a key element to maintaining high
quality deer habitat. In the past, different fire cycles and
human disturbance, such as logging, resulted in higher deer
abundance that we see today. Although weather patterns,
especially precipitation, drive deer populations in the shortterm,
only landscape-scale habitat improvement will make
long-term gains in mule deer abundance in many areas.
 
Cheatgrass also has zero nutritional value to wild game.Also,because of it's very nature that piper mentioned above,when it does burn,it burns extremely hot,rendering much of the earth scorched,and not very good for creating new growth of natural species.It is about the most worthless plant there is along with a few other invasive species.This forage kochia sounds interesting,though.Also,all these projects take money.Most sportsmen are unwilling to support organizations that do these types of projects;or raise money for these types of projects.You know the types.They cry and moan about not having any deer,but will not raise a finger to help.Unfortunately,these folks are the majority.
 
In 2007 the Milford fire, and the Greenville Bench fire burned close to 800,000 acres. About half of which was Cedar Pinion, Juniper mix. Almost all BLM land. These 2 fires were not too far from each other.

Here we are 4 years later, and I am not seeing seeing the bigger deer herds I was hoping for.

There were moratoriums on grazing on a lot of these areas. Some up to 3 years.

A lot of these areas look really good feed wise, especially after the wet year last year. There was some chaining done, and a lot of air, and drill seeding done.

I was told some of the seed mix they used on Greenville Bench was contaminated with thisle. There are some areas up there that are pure thisle now. Although I do see deer out in it.

Some water sources went away with the Grazing moratoriums.

I've been a little disapointed with all this new country so far.
Sure some great cattle range though.
 
Buckstrut....you said


Don't forget to mention the Fishlake mountain. This area has gone downhill for the last 10 years. It is pressured by so many factors: Overgrazing of cattle that takes up the prime habitat for mule deer; competition with Elk; Predators cougar and coyote, large amounts of pressure from ATV jamboral; and poachers!! This area needs help too!

_______________

Excuse me but you just described the private land I hunted....tons of predators.....cheatgrass.....sheep....cattle.....atv's.......and guess what?!

TONS OF DEER! It was a great hunt....so try focusing on the real problem....Hunters.....manage the hunts better UTAH

"The penalty good men pay for indifference to public affairs is to be ruled by evil men." - Plato
 
on the real problem hunters. aspen.you think we need less hunters,. put 'up or shut up' dont hunt utaH FOR THE NEXT 5 YEARS. and take your cwmu buddies with you.
 
LAST EDITED ON Dec-31-11 AT 04:40PM (MST)[p]Aspen your point doesn't prove that habitat ISN'T the main issue. With all things equal private land verses public, if the land sucks then all areas will eventually suffer. You benefit only because the deer are chased off the public to your $4000.00 smack hunt. You benefit with less pressure which makes your point valid that that hunters are also a big issue. I'm just saying don't ignore the habitat on public land or it will go to hello as if it hasn't already.
 
Grizz, the guide videos the deer on his property all summer....and winter....he has 20,000 acres so they dont leave.

Not to mention...I hunt region G in Wyoming....IT IS FULL OF SHEEP!....and cattle.

And we have found....in the summer....30" bucks within 200 yards of the sheep. The bucks dont mind...and I dont get it...but they dont care at all....even when the sheep eat the forage down pretty good....doesnt make sense but I have seen it for 15 years in the high country of Wyoming.

The deer in the Rubies are doing well and the cattle grazing there doesnt seem to affect them. I wish the Wasatch Front hunting was nearly as good as the Rubies but it isnt....and the Wasatch doesnt have cattle grazing on it....but they do have nice winter range in that area....

My point is....the sheep and cattle may spread cheat grass....but they dont affect the deer from direct competition for feed....doesnt make sense but you see it on so many private ranches.....look at Deseret Land & Livestock....


"The penalty good men pay for indifference to public affairs is to be ruled by evil men." - Plato
 
LAST EDITED ON Jan-01-12 AT 09:34AM (MST)[p]Aspen, where do you get this idea that region G in Wyoming is full of sheep and cattle? The cattle numbers aren't overwhelming and they are usually much lower in elevation than the deer during summer and fall, there are sheep but compared to the amount of habitat the amount of forage thats taken is minimal. The Ruby mountains in Nevada have cattle but numbers are kept quite low in the high country, and sheep grazing is only done south of Harrison pass. The Salt river- Wyoming ranges and Nevadas Ruby mountains both have extensive summer deer habitat, but most importantly they have fairly intact winter and intermediate range in which the animals migrate to and from, the Wasatch range is missing that important component, think about that. Its not as simple as you make it out to be, Cheat grass does not do well in cooler climates, Deseret Land and livestock land is on the northern cooler wetter edge of where cheat grass really thrives, comparing that with the great basin country of central Nevada and Utah doesn't project reality when your talking about habitat. I agree with you, there is way to much hunter pressure , but you paint things with an awfully broad brush.
 
Grizz,

I agree with you on everything, but the overgrazing bit. An old sheepherder once told me that deer do better with new vegetation and now the browse and sage are really getting old in most places.

Here is my take on the mule deer declines. There is certainly not just one aspect that is influencing the downward slide of mule deer we all know that, but Grizz, this I can verify from talking to the person in charge of the chaining above Glenwood, on the Monroe Mountain. The vegetation planted there was not for deer. It mostly benefits elk and cattle. That was out of his mouth! So if any of you think that these re-seeds do the deer any good think again. Kill the cheat-grass, predators and elk off. Plant vegetation for deer. Watch the explosion (OF DEER). EASY HUH!!!

Lumpy - If you're taking any credit for the re-seeds above Glenwood, you need to pay more attention for what they're planting.
 
From what I know, planting browse species is not as easy as just putting seeds in the soil. The forage conditions that existed during the heyday of mule deer aren't coming back, it was a one time thing, brought about by heavy livestock grazing during the early part of the twentieth century. If we were to graze the country like that now, it would be a monumental disaster.
 
CB, your a true and valued friend, wouldn't have it any other way. However, who gets in the truck a goes out with the DWR and goes out to the mountain to see first hand. Who goes to the meetings and gathers the information and provides direct feed back and shares in the planning and sets on the committees to TRY?

Every thing I've said is true about Glenwood the area on the North of Bell Rock. I told Grizz I didn't know what was planted on the Long Ridges. I told him Vance used knowledge gained on the Poverty Flats experiments when he reseeded the acres north of the fish hatchery to try and combat the cheek grass.

What I don't say but will say now, Vance Munford, our DWR biologist, told me he was doing it specifically to try to restore deer habitat above town to keep the deer up on that bench. I didn't say what he planted, I didn't ask. I trusted him when he said it was deer restoration habitat. If it was naive, I'll admit to it, we'll go out there together, on our way up to Deep (Mud) Lake and have a look in a couple of years and see what's there.

Call me, the fish a biting at Fish Lake, big ones!!!

DC
 
Lumpy, you're a more passionate person towards Mule Deer than anyone I have ever seen. If there were more like you out there, just maybe things would be different. Trouble is that a lot of those in charge only say what they think the people want to hear. You know what I'm talking about. You know me, I like to talk to anyone I see on the mountain. Sometimes they will tell you interesting information and the person (in charge of the re-seed) I talked to said there were absolutely no forbs planted for deer. My question is: WHERE IS THE DISCONNECT???

Are these things from more mismanagement or a cover up by politicians and cattlemen?

It's just like everything else done for mule deer - just half-as#'ed.

The best analogy I can give is - are you going to have an accountant or engineer build a dam? To many times the accountant is instrumental in what the engineer designs. If the people in charge are asleep at the top, that is what do you get?? Deer seed and browse is cheaper than grass.

Not trying to give you a bad time Lumpy and do appreciate your diligence, but look for the half truths and those things that are not so obvious.

PS. sidelight - With my embarking trek to talk to everybody on the mountain including Archers, I'll bet 50% of them wound an un-retrieved deer.
 
Now you are going to get gutted! You better prepare to ride in kevlar on future archery seasons.

And.......I wasn't claiming the long ridges rehab was part of the 72,000 acres SFW helped fund but they do SOME rehab for elk and not deer, so the long ridges rehab may have been for elk and cattle, I didn't ask.

I was trying to answer Grizz specific questions. He ask, what's with the long ridge reseed, I said, "I don't know!

My first and primary point was and is: SFW has funded rehab. they have tried to help deer (as well as other species) THEY HAVE BEEN SPENDING MONEY FOR HABITAT, IT HASN'T HELPED, TTTTTTTTTTHHHHHHHHHHEEEEEEEEEEYYYYYYYYYYY ADMIT THAT, THEY NNNNNNNOOOOOOOOOWWWWWWWWW WANT TO KILL BACK PREDATORS BBBBBBBBBBBEEEEEECCCCCCAAAAAUUUUUUUSSSSSSEEEEEEE THE PPPPPPPPPPRRRRRRRRROOOOOOOOFFFFFFFFFEEEEEEEEESSSSSSIIIIIIIINNNNNNNAAAAAAALLLLLSSSSSSS...... TELL THEM "ON THE MONROE" THERE IS UNUSED HABITAT.

If you had limited resources and youR professionals said there was nnnnnnnnnnnooooooooowwwwwwwww surplus habitat, would you still pour more money into when you know damn coyotes are eating the fawns?

DC
 
Lumpy,

You're getting corny and missing the point(s) also. The deer would be much better off if they just railed the country and not planted anything, otherwise you're just going to have more elk and cattle, and fewer deer.
 

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