<\/p>\n
Standing in a thick patch of pine and fir, mosquitoes swarming her face, Anna Ortega lifted a radio receiver into the air, angling it back and forth as she listened for the blip, blip, blip of a mule deer collar. A zoology graduate student at the University of Wyoming, Ortega was tracking Deer 255, a doe that had braved road crossings, fences, wolves and other hazards to get here. Somewhere in this forest near Island Park, Idaho, a dozen miles west of Yellowstone National Park, Deer 255 was laying over for the summer.<\/p>\n
Armed with bear spray, binoculars and datasheets, Ortega and two field assistants followed the blips among trees dappled with early July sun. They picked their way through knee-high grass and shrubs, the occasional snap of a twig underfoot as startling as a slamming door. The blips were strong and clear: Deer 255 was close. Ortega knelt, peered through a spotting scope and silently waved the rest of us closer. \u201cI think I see a fawn bedded down,\u201d she whispered, smiling.<\/p>\n
Later, Ortega and her crew planned to collect samples of plants that mule deer like to eat so they could compare Deer 255\u2019s destination to other summer ranges. But only after they found the doe herself. Ortega pointed to a fawn-shaped slash of tan among the tree trunks. We trained our binoculars and cameras in that direction, and \u2014 \u201cfalse alarm,\u201d Ortega murmured, as the contours of a fallen log became clear. She switched on the radio receiver, lofted it, and followed the blips deeper into the woods.<\/p>\n
While not all mule deer migrate, some travel a hundred miles or more between their summer and winter ranges. With a one-way migration of 242 miles, Deer 255 holds the record for the longest-documented land migration in the Lower 48, traveling even farther than her herd-mates, all of which winter in the Red Desert of southwest Wyoming. Her trek to Idaho from the Red Desert exemplifies the surprises scientists are still encountering with this well-studied ungulate. And as mule deer populations throughout the West remain below target levels, it underscores the need to protect the wide tracts of landscape that sustain migrating wildlife.<\/p>\n
Researchers first collared Deer 255 in March 2016. That spring, they noted her propensity for long-distance travel, but they weren\u2019t sure whether she was making a true migration, which requires a round trip. They waited for autumn to see if the doe, nicknamed Island Park Girl, would return to Wyoming. But in early August, her collar malfunctioned. When Ortega\u2019s colleagues asked where the adventurous deer was, she had to tell them she didn\u2019t know; she wasn\u2019t even sure if Deer 255 was still alive.<\/p>\n
Then, this year, early in the afternoon on a sunny March day, Ortega and her field crew were studying Deer 255\u2019s herd in the Red Desert outside Superior, Wyoming. Deer were netted from a helicopter, then ferried to the researchers, who collected samples before releasing them. A deer wearing a collar with a broken GPS was captured, and, because she had memorized its identification frequency, Ortega recognized Deer 255. It had been nearly a year and a half since the doe was last located. \u201cEveryone was crowding around and just so excited to see that this was Island Park Girl,\u201d Ortega told me later.<\/p>\n
Deer 255 was pregnant, with twins. She had made a round-trip migration nearly 100 miles longer, each way, than the longest recorded migrations of her herd-mates, some of which hadn\u2019t migrated at all. But why?<\/p>\n
Ortega and her colleagues don\u2019t know, but they do know that deer from the same herd often split up and head to different summer ranges, typically returning year after year to the same spot. Ortega explains this as a diversified stock portfolio for the herd: If catastrophe befalls one route or destination, others can ensure the group\u2019s overall success. Deer 255\u2019s migration \u201cadds just a little more complexity to it all,\u201d Ortega said. \u201cThis is another massive movement that we can add to our knowledge of migrations across the American West.\u201d<\/p>\n
Deer 255 is part of a well-studied group. Wyoming is a good place to research mule deer movement, says Matthew Kauffman, the director of the Wyoming Migration Initiative and Ortega\u2019s doctoral advisor at the University of Wyoming. Partly that\u2019s because the state\u2019s varied landscape \u2014 from the high desert scrub of the Red Desert to the foothills of mountain ranges like the Wind Rivers and the Gros Ventres \u2014 means migration is a particularly fruitful strategy, allowing animals to follow green-up in the spring and escape the harshest extremes of both winter and summer. \u201cThese animals have figured out these solutions of how to have the best of both worlds and how to sort of stitch it all together with the seasons,\u201d Kauffman says. \u201cTo me, that\u2019s the exciting part of 255. She\u2019s showing us yet another way to make a living on this landscape.\u201d There\u2019s a broader significance to her journey, too, he told me. \u201cHere we are in 2018, and big game species like mule deer and elk are some of the best-studied animals on the plant. And yet, we\u2019re still discovering these sort of secret ways they have of exploiting these landscapes.\u201d<\/p>\n
Humans, of course, are exploiting the very same places. Fences, roads and development \u2014 both urban growth and energy expansion \u2014 all infringe on mule deer habitat and migration corridors. In 2016, the most recent year for which information is available, officials estimate Wyoming\u2019s mule deer population was about 396,000, about 28 percent below the target population. Still, the state has seen modest improvements in fawn survival and population increases since 2014, says Daryl Lutz, the Lander region wildlife management coordinator for the Wyoming Game and Fish Department. That\u2019s thanks to well-timed spring and summer rain, which nourish the plants mule deer eat. On-the-ground improvements like retrofitted fences and protected habitat likely played a role, too. \u201cI guess we\u2019ll wait and see how long we get to ride this wave,\u201d Lutz says, \u201cbut we\u2019re hopeful.\u201d<\/p>\n
And while mule deer are an iconic feature of Western ecology, they\u2019re also important economically. In 2016, between hunting license and application fees, conservation stamps and other sources, Wyoming brought in more than $15 million to manage its mule deer program, a sum that doesn\u2019t include the additional money hunters and wildlife watchers spent on gas, motel rooms, guides and other goods and services.<\/p>\n
But that economic windfall is dwarfed by another source of revenue: fossil fuel development. According to the think tank Resources for the Future, oil and gas brought Wyoming about $1.8 billion in 2013. Research shows that building well pads and roads, drilling, and maintaining energy infrastructure is disruptive to mule deer. In one 17-year study, scientists from the University of Wyoming and Western Ecosystems Technology, an environmental consulting firm, found that deer never became habituated to the presence of natural gas wells, despite restoration efforts. The number of deer wintering in the affected area dropped by more than a third \u2014 even as hunting declined over the same period.<\/p>\n
That makes for potentially competing goals for the Interior Department. It must follow President Donald Trump\u2019s explicit prioritization of energy development on public land. And it must adhere to an initiative announced earlier this year by Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke to work with Western states to improve habitat for mule deer, elk and pronghorn, including migration corridors. Given Zinke\u2019s energy-boosting track record, it\u2019s unclear which priority will prevail.<\/p>\n
From Zinke\u2019s point of view, however, \u201cit\u2019s not an either-or,\u201d says Casey Stemler, the Fish and Wildlife employee leading the order\u2019s implementation. Federal efforts, while allowing for oil and gas drilling, will follow state priorities for habitat protections. That\u2019s what happened in late July, when the Interior Department deferred oil and gas leases on three parcels that overlap with the migration route of Deer 255 and her herd, and restricted development on several others; the Wyoming Game and Fish Department had requested those changes in a June 5 letter to the Bureau of Land Management.<\/p>\n
But the Interior Department\u2019s actions don\u2019t go far enough to protect mule deer, says Julia Stuble, a Wyoming-based public land and energy expert for The Wilderness Society. \u201cThey are coming under the cover of saying, \u2018Well, it\u2019s what the state wanted,\u2019 (but) they can do plenty more,\u201d Stuble told me. \u201cIf they can defer three parcels, they can defer all of them.\u201d<\/p>\n
Back on Deer 255\u2019s summer range, Ortega led us deeper into the forest, her skin now dotted with blood and welts left by mosquitoes. In a small clearing, she dropped behind a rotting log and, throwing her hands above her head, motioned to the rest of us in victory \u2014 or perhaps frustration. As we hurried over, mindful of cracking twigs, she whispered that she\u2019d gotten a good look at Deer 255\u2019s distinctive collar, but the doe had spooked. In low, quiet voices, we were discussing our next move \u2014 should we circle around and try for another look? give up and collect the plant samples? \u2014 when one of the assistants, gazing into the woods, murmured: \u201cI see her.\u201d<\/p>\n
A swatch of tawny fur flashed through the evergreens, and then it was gone. We grinned at each other, muffling our excitement, until Ortega and her assistants turned to more mundane measurements. They began identifying plants and collecting samples \u2014 sticky geranium, heart-leaf arnica \u2014 studying the destination that Deer 255 had traveled so far to reach. \u201cI feel like I would be missing a part of the story to not be actually on the ground looking at her summer range,\u201d Ortega said, no longer whispering. \u201cIt was great to get a fleeting glimpse of her. She remains elusive to us, but that\u2019s OK.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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