A Look At The Mule Deer Of Texas (Video)

Mulies of the Plains A large-scale research project is taking a closer look at mule deer in the Texas Panhandle according to the Mule Deer Foundation. Three Texas universities have teamed up with the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department to determine how agriculture may affect mule deer movements and survival in this region.

In order to better manage Panhandle mule deer, we study things that may be affecting their numbers. One factor is habitat. So TPWD has teamed up with 3 Texas universities to explore the effects of agricultural land on mule deer survival and movements. Watch the video and learn about other factors of Texas mule deer problems below.

Habitat Degradation

Droughty episodes not only provide less plant production, making fewer preferred plant species available to deer, but plants that do grow tend to be of poor forage quality. During these times mule deer are surviving on a less than desirable nutritional plane.

Poor quality forage affects herd health. Poor reproduction over the past nine years has lead to a decrease in the mule deer population. To conceive and successfully raise fawns does need good nutrition year-round. They need to be in good shape prior to breeding to facilitate conception, they must have good nutrition throughout gestation to give birth to good birth weight fawns, and have good nutrition throughout lactation to raise healthy fawns

Poor quality forage not only leads to lack of recruitment into the population but also loss of adult animals in the herd. Low quality forage leads to nutritional stress and reduces a deer’s ability to ward off parasites and disease. An unhealthy animal is more susceptible to predation.

Drought is not the only cause of habitat degradation. Mismanagement of the range, overgrazing and subsequent brush encroachment, is another cause and is amplified during a drought.

Over utilization of the range has contributed to brush encroachment over an alarmingly large portion of the Trans Pecos. Desert mule deer (Odocoileus hemionus crooki) have evolved to survive in prolonged dry spells; however, this deer species, unlike white-tailed deer (Odocoileus virginianus), prefers more open rangeland. Brush encroachment makes mule deer more susceptible to predators as they depend upon their eyesight and their ability to quickly move away from danger.

Reproduction

Common sense dictates that without recruitment the population will dwindle. The past ten years have seen few years with a 60% fawn survival and more years with 40% or less. This too has confounding factors. It can be difficult to determine if poor nutrition or poor fawning cover has led to low fawn survival.

Water

The Trans Pecos is known for being cow/calf country. Figures from the United States National Agriculture Statistic Service show West Texas ranchers in a cow/calf operation to have steadily de-stocked from 1978 through 1986, increasing cattle numbers again after the drought broke and again de-stocking over time to the present. This mirrors the fluctuation of mule deer numbers in West Texas and draws attention to the natural de-stocking of mule deer on the range.

Lack of grass production to support livestock grazing has led to poor water distribution across mule deer range. Not only does the lack of infiltration and therefore ground water availability in springs and seeps affect water availability to deer and other wildlife but as cattle are removed from pastures water troughs and windmills are often not maintained and an integral part of mule deer habitat, water, is missing. Remember the importance of water to wildlife and maintain water availability.

Predators

Prior to the succession of cow/calf operations in the Trans Pecos sheep were the main livestock class. At that time predator control was intensively performed on a large scale. The change of livestock class to primarily cow/calf operations has led to less predator control being carried out on a large-scale basis and that, which is being done, being done at a more local level. This had led to higher coyote and mountain lion numbers in most of the Trans Pecos.

Predator control at the Black Gap Wildlife Management Area increased fawn survival and numbers of adult mule deer bucks in the herd. Other research indicates that low mule deer populations can be kept low or suppressed by high predator populations.

Source: TF&G Staff