As conversations of weather occurrences and suggested anomalies become
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development~~~IS IMPERATIVE.
Pertinent themes as Global Warming, Climate Change, and Melting Ice Caps
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The intent of CLIMATE; THE CONVERSATION, is to be The Bulletin Board,
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Andrew M. Marconi
Lou Marconi
Science
For Mule Deer, an Incredible 150-Mile Migration
THE RED DESERT, WYO. — As a small group of scientists and volunteers waits by the side of a gravel road here, a helicopter swoops down, carrying two blindfolded mule deer in slings. It hovers for a moment in a furious swirl of rotor-blown snow, detaching the deer slings. As it lifts and turns, the team runs into the stinging cloud.
Team
members carry the deer on canvas stretchers to a spot to be weighed and
tested. From each animal, they draw blood, pull a whisker, check a GPS
collar or put on a new one, take a rectal temperature and fecal sample,
perform an ultrasound on the haunches, shoot a local anesthetic into the
jaw, and pull a tooth.
Ten
minutes of probing and testing later, the deer are freed and dash off,
with numb mouths and doses of antibiotics, perhaps wondering what in the
world just happened.
The
scientists were taking snapshots of the deer’s health and downloading
their movements from their digital collars — part of a broader effort to
track and preserve their migration route.
Researchers
only recently discovered that path, known as the Red Desert-to-Hoback
migration, which is as long as any known land migration in the lower 48
states, a twice-yearly, 150-mile journey that has inspired numerous
conservation groups to work together to protect the deer’s route from
development.
Some
conservationists hope the unusual collaboration will serve as a useful
precedent that could help protect other species and wild lands. “We
think this has the potential to be a model for what state and federal
agencies do across the West,” said Leslie Duncan, public lands manager
for the Pew Charitable Trusts.
Seasonal migrations in search of food are essential to the survival of many animals. The famous herds of the Serengeti
chase the rain. In the West, many elk, deer, antelope, moose and other
big game move to lush mountain slopes in the spring and summer, and wait
out the winter at lower, warmer elevations.
“Migration
is the underlying mechanism that allows this landscape to support the
deer populations,” said Hall Sawyer, a research biologist with Western EcoSystems Technology, a consulting firm, who discovered the mule deer route.
Tracking a Migration
Mule deer migrating between their winter and summer ranges
cross a checkerboard of federal, state and private lands. Researchers
captured and collared deer to map the routes, in red, followed by
migrating herds.
- WIND RIVER
- RESERVATION
- Jackson
- Hoback
- Junction
- Jackson
- WYOMING
- Rock Springs
- MULE DEER
- SUMMER
- RANGE
- FREMONT LAKE
- Lander
- Pinedale
- Farson
- RED
- DESERT
- WINTER
- RANGE
- LAND OWNERSHIP
- U.S. Forest Service
- Bureau of Land Management
- Rock Springs
- Bureau of Indian Affairs
- State
- 10 miles
Private or other
Because
houses and roads, fences and gas wells, and busy routes for
four-wheelers and snowmobiles can pose obstacles to traveling animals,
conservationists have long recognized that preserving migration routes
is essential to preserving wildlife.
About 500 deer travel the full 150 miles from their winter range here in the Red Desert to spring and summer grounds in the Hoback River basin near Jackson, Wyo. Other herds, totaling 5,000 deer, follow most or part of the path.
The
route crosses public and private lands, and scientists say it is
extraordinary, given its length, that a relatively clear path still
exists for the deer.
But
conservationists have recognized that protecting it will require
unusual cooperation among public and private groups and a new level of
scientific understanding to guide changes in regulation.
The good news, said Steve Kilpatrick, head of the Wyoming Wildlife Federation,
is that conservation groups are joining forces to help the mule deer in
ways he had not seen. “I think it’s unique,” said Mr. Kilpatrick, whose
group has hired a coordinator for the informal coalition. “I don’t know
of any other situation in the nation that it’s happened.”
CreditMichael Kirby Smith for The New York Times
Helicopter Wranglers
The effort to track the Red Desert-to-Hoback migration of mule deer began in 2011. Dr. Sawyer had been hired by the Bureau of Land Management
to track wildlife, and he put GPS collars on 40 mule deer in the Red
Desert, one of the most open, stark landscapes in a state full of them.
No
one really knew what the Red Desert deer did in the spring and summer,
although some had been seen there year-round. Most mule deer migrate,
but some stay put for reasons that are not well understood. And “unless
you collar a herd, it is really difficult to have a sense of whether
they migrate or not,” said Matthew Kauffman, a biologist for the United States Geological Survey and a professor at the University of Wyoming who leads the Wyoming Migration Initiative.
Capturing
and collaring the animals is a bit like a mule-deer rodeo. New
Zealanders developed a technique for shooting nets from a helicopter, in
which the pilot flies the way a cowboy rides a cutting horse. The pilot
isolates a deer, flying close enough for a gunner to fire a net that
traps the deer. The pilot then lowers the craft so the “mugger” — the
gunner or another crew member — can jump to the ground.
The
mugger runs to the deer, wrestles it into a position where he can
blindfold it and wrap it in a sling. The helicopter then swings back so
the mugger can hitch the sling to the copter before climbing aboard.
The
process can be rough on the deer, and accidents are inevitable. Kevin
Monteith, a wildlife biologist at the University of Wyoming who works
with Dr. Sawyer, says 1 to 3 percent of the deer die or are injured when
trapped by nets, and have to be put down.
But
the researchers say capturing the deer this way allows them to study
populations in remote areas. And without those studies, the migration
route would have remained unknown.
Once
deer are collared, the researchers release them and then recapture them
each spring and fall to download information from the collars, which
record a deer’s location every three hours.
When
Dr. Sawyer returned to the Red Desert in the spring after collaring the
first 40 deer, he found only a few. It turned out that almost all of
them had migrated somewhere, and more than half had made the full
150-mile trip.
Migrations are nothing new to Dr. Sawyer. He discovered the so-called Path of the Pronghorn, a roughly 125-mile migration from the Green River basin to Grand Teton National Park, and helped popularize it with Joe Riis,
a photographer and videographer from Wyoming. That documentation led to
changes in regulations on public land to protect the route.
Scientists
knew that most mule deer migrated to higher ground in the spring and
back down in the fall. But until the Red Desert migration was
discovered, the lengths of the migrations were not known. Details of
their path, provided by GPS collars, were a boon to conservationists.
“Data
creates opportunities to do things that didn’t exist before,” said
Steve Sharkey, director of the Knobloch Family Foundation, which backs
the research.
The
researchers are tracking more than a route. They are also mapping
behavior, like feeding and reproduction, and working to uncover the
connections between the health of the deer and when and where they
migrate.
Each
test on a deer provides crucial data. Teeth establish age, whiskers
provide DNA, blood and feces provide information about diet and
metabolism, and ultrasound scans of the haunches establish percentages
of body fat.
The
body-fat levels can vary tremendously from deer to deer and from season
to season. Migrations in the West follow what biologists call the
“green wave” in the spring — the bloom of grass and other vegetation
that starts at low elevations and moves higher with each day. The deer
that fare best “surf” that wave, catching each area’s vegetation at its
peak, when it is full of nutrition and still tender.
The
mule deer take a couple of months to travel 150 miles. The path
connects points where they stop and feed, and those times are studied
closely, too. By pooling the data, scientists can connect deer health to
the path, and the timing of their movements. They can also map the path
to show who owns the land that the deer cross.
The
scientists do not lobby for policy changes or conservation action. But
they understand their importance. So when they publicized the Red
Desert-to-Hoback route, they listed the top 10 challenges to the
migration route — something conservationists could work with.
A Migration Coalition
In July, at the prompting of the George B. Storer Foundation, Wyoming conservation groups gathered to discuss the Red Desert route — organizations like the Conservation Fund, which purchases land; the Wilderness Society and the Wyoming Outdoor Council, which focus on regulatory issues; and the Wyoming Wildlife Federation and Muley Fanatic Foundation, which have a strong base among hunters.
The
coalition focused on the top challenge for protecting the migration
route — a bottleneck near Fremont Lake. The deer cross Pine Creek there
at a location where one side is federal Bureau of Land Management land
and the other is private. Houses and marinas are nearby, as is Forest
Service land.
The
route there is about a quarter-mile wide, but sometimes narrows to a
single-file path. And the land was for sale. If bought by developers,
the migration route would most likely be blocked.
Buying it made sense to the coalition. “This is one of the last, best migrations,” said Luke Lynch, state director of the Conservation Fund,
which is in the process of buying the 364 acres for about $2 million.
The Knobloch Foundation is providing half of that; the rest will have to
be raised.
A
longer-term goal of the coalition is to change public-land management
to place greater value on migration routes. The Bureau of Land
Management is revising plans for land use in an area that includes the
Red Desert. If the bureau designates the migration route for protection,
that could serve as a precedent for other decisions by the bureau and
other agencies.
That, Mr. Sharkey says, is “the big enchilada.”
Meetings with the bureau are continuing. The conservationists have the support of the Wyoming Game and Fish Department, which has jurisdiction over the animals, but not the land. A draft report is due later this year.
The
conservationists and scientists will face other challenges in trying to
protect the migration route. But more accurate data provided by new
technology and the deer themselves — even if they are reluctant partners
in the helicopter lifts, teeth-pulling and other tests — are making
political and regulatory action easier, mostly by pinpointing the small
targets of land that are important for protecting the route.
“It’s
not about huge vast landscapes,” said Peter Aengst, senior director of
the Northern Rockies region for the Wilderness Society, which is part of
the mule-deer conservation effort. “It’s about very narrow but very
critical acres.”
A very insightful essay bringing to the surface the very very
delicate balance that exists on our planet between flora & fauna.
The Earth must maintain this balance so that the Earth's
very poignant beauty and purpose and function~~~~is SUSTAINED.
Its
impact on the economy, pollution, and the focus on Climate; The
Conversation---makes this worthy substance, for continued enthusiasm, and
consideration
Lou Marconi (SuiteLou0819)
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