To protect migration routes, wildlife biologists at the University of Wyoming are capturing mule deer by helicopter to learn exactly where they go, what they eat and how healthy they are.
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.
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
–
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 version of this article appears in print on February 3, 2015, on page D1 of the New York edition with the headline: An Incredible Journey . Order Reprints| Today’s Paper|Subscribe
