Description
Across much of their range, and the State of Utah, mule deer (Odocoileus hemionus) populations have been declining. Declines in herd numbers can be attributed to alterations to historic habitats through the introduction of exotic annual grasses and the encroachment of pinyon-juniper forests on sagebrush ecosystems, changing resource availability. To combat habitat alterations, the Utah Department of Natural Resources has implemented various habitat restoration treatments through the Watershed Restoration Initiative , broadly to remove exotic species and decrease pinyon juniper woodland encroachment. We investigated how mule deer patch retention times differ on eight different habitat restoration treatment types during summer and winter across the State of Utah, as retention time is expected to reflect resource availability. We developed seasonal moving-window Brownian Bridge Movement Models for individual mule deer, which we intersected with the locations of habitat restoration treatments and randomly generated background landscape polygons. We quantified patch retention time as the number of days individuals’ moving window movement models overlapped treatment or random polygons during each season, which we analyzed with a Poisson regression. Our Poisson regression analysis indicated sites treated to remove pinyon and juniper, both with (45.0 days) and without seeding (44.2 days), as well as sagebrush restoration sites (47.0 days), had increased retention times when compared to the landscape average in winter (34.2 days), with effects decreasing 5+ years post treatment. Retention times in summer were longer across all treatment types in the 2-4-year post-treatment age class (36.2 days) compared to the landscape average (29.1 days). Our results demonstrate the positive effects of habitat restoration through increased patch retention times both on mule deer winter and summer range, and may suggest need for retreatment 5+ years following initial treatment to maximize mule deer use.
Author ORCID Identifier
https://orcid.org/0009-0001-8192-818X
Document Type
Dataset
DCMI Type
Dataset
File Format
.csv, .txt
Publication Date
11-13-2025
Funder
Utah Division of Wildlife Resources
Publisher
Utah State University
Methodology
Data was created using Utah DWR mule deer telemetry data set. 30 day moving window utilization distributions were created using a Brownian bridge movement model. 50%(cores) for the model were overlapped with Utah Watershed Restoration Initiative habitat restoration treatments (https://wri.utah.gov/wri/). Overlap times were summed for the seasons(summer and winter) to result in patch retention times.
Scientfic Names
Odocoileus hemionus
Language
eng
Disciplines
Natural Resources and Conservation
License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
Recommended Citation
Rasmussen, J. (2025). Retaining the Herd: Habitat Restoration Efforts Increase Patch Retention Times in Mule Deer [Data set]. Utah State University. https://doi.org/10.26078/4XB0-7007