Exploring mule deer habitat

The Platte Valley Habitat Partnership (PVHP) and U.S. Forest Service (USFS) held a meeting and mule deer habitat tour last week, giving a glimpse into future projects and what has been done through past research.

Last Wednesday, the first day of the two-day event, members of PVHP, Voices of the Valley, the USFS, Wyoming Game and Fish (WGFD) and other organizations reviewed the PVHP Plan and Process, discussed the role of Voices of the Valley in the partnership and talked about current proposed habitat projects at the Platte Valley Community Center. A total of seven projects were presented, and dollar amounts for the PVHP to help give for funding were requested.

Wyoming Game and Fish Habitat Biologist Ryan Amundson first spoke about a habitat project for the TA Ranch, which included upland aeration and inter-seeding, aspen rippling, meadow legume seeding, spike herbicide application and grazing deferment for 1,096 acres.

“This is probably one of our most diverse projects,” Amundson said.

Amundson later described projects for the ZN Ranch, which included prescribed burning, platen herbicide application, riparian enhancement with burning, mowing and herbicide, and grazing deferment for 6,100 acres. The Big Creek Ranch includes spike herbicide application, aspen mechanical fire treatments, sagebrush bottomlands restoration and riparian enhancement for 8,296 acres. The TA Ranch project was estimated to cost $176,390, with $18,000 requested for PVHP funding, and the ZN Ranch project was estimated to cost $271,525, with $41,634 requested for funding.

For the Big Creek Ranch project, the estimated cost was close to $100,000, and $10,500 was requested for funding.

As part of the fourth project, Christina Barrineau from WGFD and Jeff Streeter from Trout Unlimited presented the Encampment River Riparian Restoration project for mule deer vegetation, which was estimated to cost about $500,000, and $10,000 was requested for funding from the PVHP.

“This project goal is to reestablish riparian vegetation abundance and diversity to increase the sustained mule deer,” Barrineau said.

One of the last projects presented included a fence conversion project to be done through SERCD and the BLM, estimated to cost $356,000 with $40,000 requested for PVHP funding. The USFS then presented two projects, one being to control noxious weeds ($34,704 cost, $4,120 for funding), and another for replacing the existing fence at French Creek ($18,864 cost, $3,000 for funding).

WFGD Saratoga Wildlife Biologist Will Schultz said additional funding for projects could come from organizations such at the Wyoming Landscape Conservation Initiative (WLCI), Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation, Mule Deer Foundation, Wyoming Game and Fish Trust, Trout Unlimited, and direct or in-kind funds from landowners.

The seven proposals were then voted on for approval, using fingers on a five-point scale representing approval level, by those in attendance at the meeting. All seven were approved, according to the majority of the public’s vote.

“The commissioners and Game and Fish need PVHP’s endorsement of these projects that have been proposed,” said Jessica Clement, Research Scientist and Program Director for the University of Wyoming Ruckelshaus Institute of Environment and Natural Resources.

As part of the next steps, the seven proposals will be presented for approval to the Game and Fish Commission during their Nov. 13-14 meeting in Laramie.

For the second day, the USFS hosted the Mule Deer Habitat Tour, which gave those attending Wednesday’s meeting an up-close visual view of land areas studied for mule habitat and migration patterns. The first area stop was the Six-mile Gap area on the east side of Highway 230, approximately 3.5 miles north of the Colorado state line and inside the forest boundary on Forest Road 492.

WGFD Saratoga Wildlife Biologist Will Schultz, along with Amundson and Steve Loose, Wildlife Biologist for Medicine Bow-Routt National Forests and Thunder Basin National Grassland, presented a map of the area and talked about a mule deer study done on the land. They spoke about how special GPS collars programmed to track land movement were fitted onto deer within the area, in order to study traveling and settling patterns.

Loose then guided the tour toward a big-game exclosure, which was a large, fenced-in area built more than 50 years ago on the land. The exclosure was meant to keep larger animals out, so that the habitats of only smaller animals could be studied.

“In about 1955 they got their first transit readings from in here, and this was built by the Game and Fish Department,” he said. “This is the big game exclosure, so there are no livestock or big-game animals that get in here. Of course, jackrabbits and things like ground squirrels can get in there.”

The next two stops were on the west side of Highway 230 in the Holroyd Park area near County Road 798 and Forest Road 498, followed by a stop on deeded property of Big Creek Ranch, where Amundson gave a history of the surrounding land area.

“Big Creek has a long history of trying different sagebrush treatments on this property, everything from using a road grader, to completely plowing and farming a piece back up,” he said. “You can also see some of the crested wheat grass heads that are in here.”

 

Reader Comments(0)

 
 
Rendered 03/29/2024 06:26