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Forage
Forage Extension Program
Mule Deer
Habitat Management Suggestions
for Selected Wildlife Species
By R.J. Mackie, R.F. Batchelor, M.E. Majerus, J.P. Weigand,
and V.P. Sundberg
"It
is useful to classify the important deer foods
into two categories, according to each food's
ability to attract and sustain deer in good physical
condition." |
The Rocky Mountain mule deer inhibits open woodlands,
rangeland, rugged canyons and mountains, and rolling
sagebrush country containing an adequate supply of food
plants, interspersed with an escape cover of moderate
to heavy timber, aspen groves, brushy draws, coulees
and river breaks. Mule deer are scattered throughout
the entire state with populations existing in each of
the 56 counties. In western Montana, mule deer summer
at the higher elevations, then migrate to the lower
levels to escape the deep snows.
FOODS
Mule deer in Montana occupy varied habitats and thus
eat a wide variety of forage foods - the leaves, needles,
succulent stems, fruits and nuts - from trees, shrubs,
forbs, domestic crops and grasses. It is useful to classify
the important deer foods into two categories, according
to each food's ability to attract and sustain deer in
good physical condition. Proper classification reflects
seasonal palatability and nutritional content of plant
parts eaten. Choice foods attract deer and maintain
vigorous health and reproduction. Fair foods are somewhat
deficient, but usually sufficient to maintain life through
critical periods of the year. From careful analysis
of extensive food studies, biologists classify plants
in the state of Montana as follows:
Choice Foods:
Grasses and grain crops - the green forage of bluegrass,
bromegrass, cheatgrass, needlegrass, timothy, oats,
rye and wheat are attractive whenever available in late
fall, winter and early spring. The grains of barley,
corn, oats, rye and wheat are also choice foods.
The tender leaves and stems of forbs, including alfalfa,
bluebells, burnet, cloves, dandelion, hawksbeard, wild
lettuce, mulesear, onion, sweetclover, trefoil and yellowbell;
new-growth leaves and twigs of shrubs, including bitterbrush,
buckwheat, ceanothus (redstem and snowbrush), cherry,
dogwood, elderberry, mountain ash, mountain mahogany,
sagebrush, serviceberry and willow.
Tree foods include the tender leaves and fruits of
apple, chokecherry, and crabapple; and the green and
freshly-fallen leaves of aspen,
Some species of mushrooms and lichens are choice foods.
Fair Foods:
Tender growth of grasses and sedges, including Idaho
fescue, tall fescue, needle-and-thread and wheatgrasses.
New growth of forbs, including aster, balsamroot, biscuitroot,
cinquifoil, sticky geranium, wild sunflower and violet.
Tender leaves, semi-woody stems, and fruits or berries
of shrubs and trees, including cottonwood, currant,
Douglas-fir, huckleberry, juniper, maple, mockorange,
ninebark, Oregon grape, plum, rabbitbrush, raspberry,
rose, snowberry, smooth sumac, skunkbush sumac and thimbleberry.
The importance of supply or quantity of food has long
been recognized in deer management, but only in recent
years has the importance of nutritional quality of food
plants been emphasized. Almost without exception, low
deer populations can be traced directly to an insufficient
quantity or poor quality of food.
Ranges consisting of a complex of natural vegetation
are most suited for mule deer populations because high
quality green forage is likely to be available during
all periods of the year.
Habitat Management Suggestions
Cultivated lands, when available near cover, offer
prime opportunities to grow the more choice foods that
attract, support and produce good to excellent deer
populations. Landowners who want deer and deer hunting
should plant, establish or make available a number a
choice foods listed above under "Foods."
Management of rangelands for mule deer must consider
dual and competitive uses of important forage species
by domestic livestock. Use of a range is usually determined
by examining the percent of annual growth of plants
eaten by animals. Thus, as a rule of thumb, we know
that forage is being utilized too heavily when more
than 50% of the available annual growth of key shrub
species, such as bitterbrush or mountain mahogany, has
been consumed. In such cases, either livestock or deer
numbers should be reduced - by seasonal management of
the livestock, or by increased harvest of deer through
hunting. Mule deer do not prefer cured grasses, so proper
grazing of grasslands by cattle is not detrimental to
deer. Sheep and goats, however, are much more competitive
with mule deer. To recognize proper use, overuse and
general range conditions, an experienced range conservationist,
biologist or soil conservationist can be helpful.
Woodland habitat in mountainous mule deer range usually
accumulates deep snow in the late fall and winter, and
deer must migrate into foothills and lower rangelands
for winter forage. This is a critical period for deer
and the season when high death losses are most common.
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