Mule Deer Watch: Gas Prices and Mule Deer

Mule Deer Watch
Gas Prices and Mule Deer

By Dax Mangus

The other day I was going through my list of out-of-state deer hunts that I want to apply for; at the same time, I was checking the family budget to see how much trouble I would be in with the wife. I was looking at dates and locations of potential units to figure out things like travel time and scouting trips, when I realized that the significant price of a non-resident deer tag would be less than my gas bill! Anyone that has bought an out-of-state tag before knows that they are not cheap, but for the first time since I started hunting out of state, the tag is not going to be the major expense! I hunt “poor man’s” style - draw tags, public land, self-guided, cooking and camping in a tent or trailer to keep my costs as low as possible. This way, I can maximize the number of hunts I can afford each year on what I admit is a pretty pathetic salary. When budgeting for hunts in the past, gas didn’t used to be such a factor.

Gas prices are making it more and more difficult to participate in the outdoor hobbies we enjoy. I remember just a few years ago when things were slow on a Sunday afternoon, I would pack the family in the SUV and head out for a drive up the nearest canyon to look for deer or elk. Or, when I had a free Saturday, I would spend it exploring a new dirt road or area I wasn’t familiar with. It was easy to rack up some serious miles just cruisin’ the hills and, while gas wasn’t free, it also wasn’t the budget buster it is today. Fast forward to 2008.

Unleaded gas prices are approaching $4 a gallon (thank goodness I don’t drive a diesel - you seen those prices lately?!) and you can’t afford to ignore gas costs in your budget. Gas prices are making a big dent in our wallets through multiple facets of the economy. Unfortunately the impacts of high energy prices don’t stop there.

When you consider gas prices at $4.00 a gallon, crude oil at over $100 a barrel, increasing instability in the Middle East, and the volatility of the global oil market, it is only natural that Americans are pushing hard to develop more sources of energy at home to ease our dependence on foreign oil. Increasing domestic energy production and developing alternative sources of energy in some form or another is part of every presidential candidate’s political rhetoric during this election cycle, and it is something on the mind of millions of Americans.
Here in the West at “ground zero” for much of this new domestic energy development, new wells for oil, natural gas, and coal bed methane are being drilled faster than sub-prime mortgage homeowners are being evicted. Since 1996, more than 24.2 million acres have been leased for energy development in the Mountain West. Much of this new energy development is occurring on public lands. States like Wyoming, Colorado, New Mexico, Utah, and Montana are experiencing unprecedented levels of energy extraction. Energy extraction activities have both direct and indirect impacts to mule deer habitats and the animals themselves.

The direct impacts to mule deer habitat are probably the most noticeable. The well pads, pipelines, compression stations and extensive network of access roads necessary for drilling and maintenance physically remove many acres of wildlife habitat. One individual well pad will take up two to five acres and, in an active oilfield, there are often thousands of well pads. When you couple the actual loss of habitat with the traffic, dust, noise from drilling rigs and pumps, and level of human activity associated with an oilfield, you effectively cut the amount of usable habitat even more. All this disturbance and human activity has indirect impacts on habitat because it keeps deer from using what could be suitable habitat in areas adjacent to energy development. A recent study conducted in Wyoming found that mule deer make significant changes to their home ranges and habitat-use patterns in response to energy development. If energy development activities are taking place on a small scale, there may be alternative areas nearby with suitable habitat for the displaced deer, but in large-scale energy developments where habitat is a limiting factor, deer populations can be severely impacted.

Mule deer herds in most Western states are struggling, with populations below both historic numbers and current management objectives. Mule deer habitat issues are often a root cause for difficulties in achieving and maintaining mule deer population objectives. Just this year, we experienced some of the negative effects limited winter range can have on deer populations with above-average snow depths and below normal temperatures. Hopefully emergency winter feeding programs helped minimize the losses in those areas. While population impacts are most noticeable on winter ranges where we actually observe deer starving to death, limited summer range can also hold mule deer populations back by reducing body condition and reproduction rates. Impacts to transition ranges and habitat barriers that impede seasonal migrations can also have a significant impact on deer populations. Many energy development activities in the West are concentrated on deer winter ranges, but energy extraction is rapidly expanding into transitional and summer ranges.

The increased traffic associated with trucking oil out, and maintaining the energy extraction infrastructure can be a major disturbance to deer. Many of the winter range areas where energy development is occurring historically had fewer roads, and many of those roads were not plowed or maintained in the winter months. These areas saw only occasional winter traffic - probably guys like us out there taking a look, snapping some pictures or scouting for the upcoming shed season. But now there is constant traffic all hours of the day and night year-round. Increased winter traffic in these sensitive areas leads to an increase in the amount of critical winter fat reserves deer use running away from vehicles. The drilling process and the removal of oil and gas can also have negative effects on water quality through erosion and toxic chemicals that are released into the environment. In some areas, the increase in human activity has also led to an increase in poaching incidents. Just by the law of averages, if you have more people in the area, you are bound to have more poachers in the area. Big bucks are more likely to be visible during the late fall and winter months and seeing these big bucks near a road provides an unfortunate opportunity for those that don’t respect our wildlife or the law.

We are losing critical habitats, making adjacent habitats unusable, impeding migration corridors, causing stress on animals during their most vulnerable time of the year, facilitating poaching… and the list goes on. It sounds pretty hopeless, so what can we do? Our nation’s energy requirements are real and pressing; it would be irresponsible to ignore them and continue to rely so heavily on hostile governments for our energy needs. At the same time, we need to ensure that we use our resources wisely and in a sustainable manner. Long term effects need to be taken into account. It is important that the hunting public be aware of the issues and potential impacts to mule deer, and that we let our federal and state agencies know that we are concerned. Measures need to be taken to ensure that our resources are utilized in a way that makes sense, and attempts to minimize negative impacts.

Federal agencies do place some stipulations on energy companies regarding the location, timing, and techniques they use. Energy companies also typically have to commit to restore disturbed areas when their leases run out or wells run dry. Companies also often contribute money and resources toward mitigation projects in an attempt to offset negative impacts. Most federal and many state wildlife agencies have biologists or specialists on staff specifically to address wildlife/energy issues. These biologists are charged with looking out for our wildlife and their habitats and making the most of mitigation and restoration projects. However, despite the best efforts of many wildlife and land managers, the frantic pace of energy development is difficult to keep up with and sometimes decisions are made without due consideration of the impacts to mule deer and other wildlife species.

Mitigating negative impacts to mule deer populations and habitats provides a formidable challenge. Factors like invasive weeds (i.e. cheatgrass), and other complications associated with re-vegetating land in dry Western environments make habitat restoration and improvement projects challenging. In addition to habitat challenges, mule deer themselves provide some unique challenges to wildlife managers. Unlike other ungulate species such as pronghorn and elk, mule deer populations do not seem to respond to habitat improvement projects as readily. Once a mule deer population has experienced a significant decline, it can be extremely difficult for that population to recover to previous levels. Mule deer do not seem to adapt to disturbance as well as some other species. While other ungulates like elk and pronghorn seem to be able to “find the food,” mule deer are such creatures of habit that they will migrate right through suitable winter habitat to starve to death on a familiar winter range in poor condition. Unfortunately, biologists have had very little success transplanting mule deer to help grow deer populations. If resident deer numbers drop below critical levels in these disturbed areas, habitat restoration efforts will be in vain. If we lose our deer herds in these areas, it may be impossible for those populations to ever recover.

The large geographic and economic scale of energy development and complexity of the social, political, and biological issues involved make it an intimidating issue to tackle. Thankfully, several conservation organizations have come together to help facilitate communication between sportsmen, government agencies, and energy companies. These groups are helping to ensure that wildlife and natural resource issues raised by energy development receive adequate consideration and that energy development is conducted in a balanced and responsible manner.

The Theodore Roosevelt Conservation Partnership (TRCP) is one of the conservation organizations that has become involved (http://www.trcp.org). The TRCP has an active campaign targeted at ensuring responsible energy development. In Wyoming, sportsmen from multiple conservation organizations including TRCP, Mule Deer Foundation, Trout Unlimited, and many others have formed a group called Sportsmen for the Wyoming Range (http://wyomingrangesportsmen.org). This group was formed in response to energy development leases in the Wyoming Range Mountains of western Wyoming. This group feels strongly that there are some areas with important traditional uses and values that just aren’t compatible with energy development, and need to be protected. Our public lands are owned by all the citizens of the United States and, in accordance with federal laws, are managed for “multiple use.” Not all “uses” of our federal lands are compatible, and land managers can’t manage for every use, everywhere.

There has to be a balance, and energy extraction areas should be chosen strategically. Extraction methods should be designed to minimize impacts. Critical winter ranges, limited summer ranges, and bottlenecked migration routes and transition ranges for mule deer populations should receive special consideration when evaluating potential sites for energy development. If energy development does occur in these areas, wildlife officials and land managers should develop long term plans to minimize impacts, provide for interim mitigation, and set out a strategy for a complete recovery.

While I certainly don’t like the prospect of paying $4.00 a gallon to go hunt deer, I dislike the idea of large declines in mule deer populations even more. Balancing the energy needs of our country and fragile biological systems, like mule deer populations, is a difficult and risky proposition. It is important that sportsmen become informed and get involved in the issue. Sportsmen can play a major role in helping to ensure that policy makers, wildlife and land managers, and energy companies thoroughly consider all the factors and make decisions that will ensure long term stability for our country and economy as well as that big-eared deer species we all love.

Tags: dax mangus, HI36

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