Plant Communities in Trouble . . .
Maintaining plant communities and
wildlife habitat to meet the expectations of the public and the life
requirements of healthy mule deer populations requires more than
individual efforts by states and provinces. Policies that cross
political boundaries and address factors that contribute to mule
deer habitat loss and degradation, and greater emphasis on working
with landowners to enhance habitat on private land may be critical
to the future of many mule deer herds. The following are a few plant
communities in trouble, and one plant community that is thriving to
the detriment of healthy mule deer habitats.
Shrub-Steppe
Of all the habitats in the West, the
shrub-steppe community has probably fared the worst. Shrubsteppe is
the largest natural grassland in North America. It once covered more
than 200,000 square miles, and extends from southeastern Washington
and eastern Oregon, through Idaho, Nevada, and Utah, and into
western Wyoming and Colorado. Shrub refers to the most common type
of plant that grows in this habitat, while "steppe" is a Russian
word that means a vast treeless plain. Grasses such as wheatgrass
and bluegrass, and shrubs such as sagebrush, bitterbrush,
rabbitbrush and greasewood are common types of plants found in
shrubsteppe communities.
 The shrub-steppe region is home to more than
200 kinds of birds, and 30 mammal species, including the mule deer.
Mule deer eat sagebrush, particularly during the winter months.
The greatest threats to sagebrush
communities are conversion of habitat for agricultural purposes,
development, grazing by livestock and fire suppression.
Biologists recommend sagebrush habitats
be disturbed using fire or mechanical methods to provide a mosaic of
habitats, managing livestock grazing to help vegetation recover, and
managing elk and mule deer populations based on the ability of the
habitat to support a certain number of ungulates.
And they encourage creativity when
reclaiming sites by planting native species that benefit mule deer.
Forests
Forests offer three benefits to mule deer
- places to hide, places to lessen the effects of severe weather and
places to eat. Quantity, quality and diversity of plants limit the
number of mule deer that can exist in a forest.
Forests naturally go through six stages
before they become old growth - grass-forb, shrub, shrubsapling,
open sapling-pole, closed sapling-pole-sawtimber, large sawtimber
and old growth. Mule deer respond favorably to forests in the first
four stages because of the quantity, quality and diversity of plants
present soon after logging. The amount of time today's commercial
forests offer habitat quality to mule deer is far shorter than in
historical times because of how quickly foresters are able to
regenerate a forest using herbicides, site preparation and seedling
plantings.
The following are some recommendations to
improve habitat for mule deer in forests:
- Maintain portions of forests in early
successional stages.
- Create markets for pulpwood timber to
improve mule deer habitat in forests by thinning pole timber.
- Promote the use of fires and reseed
with native plants mule deer prefer.
- Limit the negative effects of roads.
Reseeding roads no longer in use, limiting traffic on roads,
closing roads during high stress periods, and estimating the
impacts of new roads over a landscape can help mule deer.
- Protect hardwood species such as oak
to provide mast and cover for mule deer, and protect riparian
areas from overuse by deer and other ungulates.
- Responsible timber harvest based on
adaptive management practices can greatly enhance mule deer
populations that use forests.
Aspen
Aspen is a component of many forest types
and covers up to 6.9 million acres in the western United States. It
is considered the most widely distributed native tree in North  America. Mule deer rely on aspen communities
for food, cover, hiding, fawning, fawn rearing, and protection from
severe weather, making it a popular habitat type for them three
seasons of the year.
Aspen are short-lived, and rarely survive
more than 100 years. Fire is important to set back succession in
aspen stands to retain grass and forb communities, to set back
conifers that outcompete aspen and to create forest openings for
aspen. Many aspen stands have not been subjected to fire in over 50
years, creating older aspen stands with few grasses and forbs. A
s tudy done in 1981 confirmed the average age of aspen stands in
Colorado is 80 years old, and stands younger than 50 years of age
were difficult to find.
The distribution of aspen is similar to its historical
distribution, but the stands areolder, fewer and mixed with
conifers.
Biologists recommend stimulating the
growth of younger stands of aspen using fire, harvest, mechanical
treatments and proper livestock grazing to provide several age
classes of aspen stands throughout a muledeer population's range.
Fire will also help control coniferous invasion of aspen stands.
and One Troubling Plant Community . . .
Pinyon-juniper
Pinyon-juniper plant
communities have expanded to over 74 million acres of the
Intermountain West. Pinyon-juniper plant communities began expanding
when livestock were introduced in the late 1800s, fire was reduced
across the landscape and climatic changes occurred.
When pinyon-juniper initially
encroaches into shrub steppe communities, habitat for mule deer
improves with additional diversity of plants and cover. The
improvement is short-lived. Because it is drought tolerant,
pinyon-juniper woodlands eventually outcompete forbs, grasses and
shrubs, especially in places where woodlands are adjacent to
grasslands. Biologists have documented a loss of 80 percent of
mountain big sagebrush when juniper covers 50 percent of the canopy
of an area. Other plants and plant communities such as antelope
bitterbrush, mountain mahogany and aspen are also lost when
pinyon-juniper invades an area.
To manage pinyon-juniper woodlands
for mule deer habitat, biologists recommend harvesting fuel wood and
using fire in grasslands next to pinyon-juniper woodlands to reduce
further encroachment and improve quantity and diversity of grasses,
forbs and shrubs.
Mule Deer, Changing Landscapes, Changing
Perspectives, is a series of non-technical articles based on
technical papers from the book, “Mule Deer Conservation: Issues and
Management Strategies” Published by The Berryman Institute, Utah
State University.
The contents of this web page may be
photocopied or reprinted for noncommercial purposes using the
citation listed below:
Mule Deer Working Group. 2003. Mule Deer:
Changing landscapes, changing perspectives. Mule Deer Working Group,
Western Association of Fish and Wildlife
Agencies.
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