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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
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
"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."
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.