FWP embarking on extensive mule deer study

Folks traveling up the North Fork may see a mule deer with a radio collar on. Two deer were collared about a month ago by Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks as part of a larger study that’s looking at mule deer populations in Montana both west and east of the Divide, said biologist Tim Thier.

Mule deer, across much of their range, have been in decline, Thier noted.

FWP had hoped to collar about 30 deer in the Thompson-Fisher River area and the western Whitefish Range, south of Grave Creek, but deep snows this winter had the deer holed up in the trees.

FWP contracts out a helicopter service that nets the deer from the air. They’re then collared and released unharmed. But it was impossible to get at the deer in Fisher and other regions of the Whitefish Range, so they caught a couple of does in February near Big Creek, where about 50 to 60 muleys winter each year.

Thier said the study also extends to a herd near Augusta on the Rocky Mountain Front. That effort was more successful and about 30 deer there were captured and collared, he said.

The hope is to capture more in the Thompson-Fisher and the western Whitefish range next winter near Trego and Fortine, if conditions allow. The study is expected to last about five years and will look at habitat, movement, mortality and competition whitetails, among other factors. Where they travel is a mystery at this point.

“We have no idea where they go,” Thier said.

The collars should help greatly with mortality. They’re equipped to send out a special signal if they haven’t moved for more than six hours. That should allow biologists time to track them down and confirm how and why a mule deer has died. The study is restricted to does.

The field work is being done by graduate students from the University of Montana. It’s suspected that locally, whitetail deer competition may be a factor in mule deer decline, Thier said. Places that once had herds of mule deer now have whitetails, he noted.

The study also aims to find out if there’s something land managers can do to improve mule deer habitat. That’s why capturing the Big Creek deer isn’t ideal, Thier noted. If they head into Glacier National Park all summer, that land isn’t actively managed. Biologists will get data on the deer, but there isn’t much they can do about land management inside the Park, as opposed to state and federal lands.

Previous studies have shown that ungulates are migrating far further than was first suspected.

Thier noted that elk in one study were migrating from Big Arm in the winter to Olney in the summer months.

Another study elk on the Tobacco Plains near Eureka travels to Top of the World Provincial Park Canada in the summertime.

Collared mule deer near Cranbrook have migrated as far south as Libby, Thier noted.

“A lot of (ungulates) are going a lot farther than we thought,” Thier said.