Drought and deer
I've never seen as many deer (and 1 bear) on the drive we took last night as we saw last night. Couldn't even photograph them all as it was getting too dark by the time we hit the last 100 metres of the drive before the highway, and the final field probably had upwards of 40 mule deer in it.
Obviously the drought has taken its toll on the feed available in the hills and the wildlife is coming to the fields in numbers not seen previously. We've also seen an unprecedented number of fawns while driving this year - maybe one or two per year in all year previous, last night alone we saw a dozen. Again, likely something to do with the drought and the lack of nutritious food and cover it has brought outside of irrigated areas. The hills and fields which are not irrigated by man or nature are browner than I have ever seen in 30 years here.
I don't think the fires account for the deer in the fields as I think these deer have always been around just not in the fields in these numbers, and would not be deer whose territory was impacted by the wildfires which were a bit further away than I think these ones would range. I think it is mainly just the local herd (s) going to the only place where real food and cover is available.
Probably too many deer around for the numbers not to take a hit over the winter and spring with this drought in play. But I also think there are likely way more wild animals than there would be naturally in my area in any case, and the competition between ungulates for grass will be exacerbated over this (the species include white tail deer which were not seen here when I first arrived in the area and are now so abundant they already threatened the mule deer herd, as well as bighorn sheep which were deliberately introduced decades ago).
The bighorn sheep were introduced under the continuing justification that they were part of the landscape previously, although they had died out in the area previous to European arrival. A justification I think is ridiculous as it is still interfering with a balance that nature created.
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In your general area, what is the difference between white-tailed and mule deer in habitat preference?
I'm not a professional so it's based on amateur observations over 30 years.
There might be some micro barriers in place for the white tails in certain parts of my area. For example, I have never seen a white tail in the area I drove refered to in this post, every deer was a mule deer.
Thinking about it, I'd say you can expect to see mule deer in any of the biomes in my area - alpine, grasslands, semi-arid, hills, mountain, valleys. White tails are more secretive of course so it could be I just don't see them when they are around, but the white tails I do see (again, this is just on reflection in the moment not on recorded observations) seem to be 1) never in the semi arid areas including both hills and valleys and 2) where there are irrigated fields exceeding a certain size in both length and width.
I would maybe theorize that combined with the history of white tails only recently moving into this naturally arid area the habitat preference has to do with preferred diet and/or the availability of ample (contiguous) cover.
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