The doe looked from side to side before stepping toward the box culvert spanning Starvation Creek under Highway 6 and eventually venturing to the other side.
This image was one of hundreds captured by multiple cameras on either side of the bridge. The cameras are a high-tech effort between the Utah Department of Transportation, Utah Division of Wildlife Resources and Utah State University to solve the mystery behind the declining mule deer population.
That’s just one part of the effort to better understand the threats facing a species that was once among Utah’s most abundant animals.
“Mule deer were common in Utah at the time of settlement, although not as abundant as today,” said Doug Sakaguchi, head biologist for the wildlife resources division.
The mule deer population has been in decline since the 1990s. From 1960 to 1993, no fewer than 150,000 hunters participated in the annual mule deer hunt, with harvesting figures peaking in 1961, when more than 132,000 deer were killed.
Today, the division estimates the total deer population at just over twice that number, about 302,000, and hunting numbers have been capped to protect the population.
But hunters aren’t the only threat to the mule deer population. Sakaguchi said there are a lot of factors at play.
“Habitat loss, all sorts of development, as well as weather conditions, predation, illegal hunting – poaching, they all factor into this decline of mule deer,” he said.
Vehicle collisions are also a factor in the population decline, Sakaguchi said. The mule deer habitat is becoming increasingly fragmented by asphalt highways like Highway 6, between Spanish Fork and Price.
In 2004, after reviewing 11 years of data from accidents on Highway 6, UDOT estimated that 25 percent of the crashes occurred as a result of a collision with an animal.
Based on the data, UDOT figured that 111 accidents occurred in 2004. But when the Division of Wildlife Resources looked at the report, Sakaguchi said, the numbers didn’t match up.
“We looked at preliminary carcass data and found that there was actually between 300 and 500 deer and elk carcasses picked up at Highway 6,” he said.
Since then, UDOT has built two bridges specifically to help wildlife cross the road — following one of the recommendations made by the Federal Highway Association in 2005. The number of deer-related collisions has decreased by half in these areas, Sakaguchi said.
Seeking even better data, the government agencies have taken to the sides of the road on ATVs.
“Currently, contractors for the Department of Transportation drive highways throughout the state and remove animal carcasses,” said Daniel Olsen, a graduate research assistant for the Department of Wildlife Resources at USU. “They also take records of what species are recovered and where they are killed. We know that this method does not account for 100 percent of the deer that are killed, because some deer that are involved in vehicle collisions end up on side of the road, where it is difficult to see them from the highway.”
In addition they have tracked the movement of 32 mule deer along Highway 6 to better monitor how effective UDOT wildlife bridges are.
“One other thing that we have been working on with the Department of Transportation and Division of Wildlife Resources is a smartphone app and website to report animal carcasses that are on roads,” Olsen said. The app was made with the intention of making data collection faster and more accurate.
“This is really exciting stuff,” Olsen said, “and will make Utah one of the first states to have a system such as this.”
David Thomas, Brie Geller, Mackinzie Hamilton, Marissa Shields, Ashley Howell and Danielle Manley contributed to this report.
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