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Oregon Mule Deer Trout Creek Migration Corridors

Metadata Updated: October 30, 2025

The Trout Creek mule deer herd is composed of residents and migrants that make short-range elevational migrations. Mule deer mainly winter at lower elevations surrounding Blue Mountain and the slopes of the Oregon Canyon Mountains. In spring, some of these mule deer migrate to higher elevations in the Oregon Canyon Mountains. Other members of the herd winter in the southwestern portion of the herd’s range, inhabiting areas near Hawks Mountain, the Pueblo Mountains, and the foothills of the Trout Creek Mountains. These mule deer migrate to summer ranges on the crests of Holloway Mountain and the Trout Creek Mountains. Notably, one mule deer formerly wintering on the Trout Creek Mountains migrated south from a summer range on the Nevada border to the Montana Mountains during the second documented winter before returning to Oregon in spring. Habitat on winter ranges consists of A. t. wyomingensis (Wyoming big sagebrush) plant communities and non-native annual grasslands. Summer ranges consist mainly of native grasslands, mountain big sagebrush plant communities, and mountain shrub communities. The Trout Creek mule deer herd faces several threats, including summer wildfires, highway barriers, and competition for resources. In 2012, the Holloway fire burned 462,017 acres (186,972 ha) including most of the Trout Creek and Oregon Canyon Mountains, resulting in the temporary loss of shrub cover at higher elevations and conversion of native forbs and shrubland to invasive annual grasses at lower elevations. Although no migratory mule deer attempt to cross U.S. Highway 95, some resident mule deer have ranges spanning the busy highway, which had an AADT value of 2,095 vehicles in 2018. The Trout Creek mule deer herd also borders the Barren Creek Complex HMA to the north and the Beaty Butte HMA to the east (DOI and BLM, 2020; BLM 2022). The Barren Creek Complex HMA contains approximately 2,500 feral horses while the Beaty Butte HMA contains 463 horses. Both feral horse populations surpass the respective maximum appropriate management levels of 892 and 250 horses, respectively, suggesting that mule deer and horses compete for resources in the few areas where ranges overlap. These mapping layers show the location of the migration corridors for mule deer (Odocoileus hemionus) in the Trout Creek population in Oregon. They were developed from 40 migration sequences collected from a sample size of 10 animals comprising GPS locations collected every 5 hours.

Access & Use Information

Public: This dataset is intended for public access and use. License: No license information was provided. If this work was prepared by an officer or employee of the United States government as part of that person's official duties it is considered a U.S. Government Work.

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Dates

Metadata Created Date September 13, 2025
Metadata Updated Date October 30, 2025

Metadata Source

Harvested from DOI USGS DCAT-US

Additional Metadata

Resource Type Dataset
Metadata Created Date September 13, 2025
Metadata Updated Date October 30, 2025
Publisher U.S. Geological Survey
Maintainer
Identifier http://datainventory.doi.gov/id/dataset/usgs-6584b5c8d34eff134d42da24
Data Last Modified 2024-04-10T00:00:00Z
Category geospatial
Public Access Level public
Bureau Code 010:12
Metadata Context https://project-open-data.cio.gov/v1.1/schema/catalog.jsonld
Metadata Catalog ID https://ddi.doi.gov/usgs-data.json
Schema Version https://project-open-data.cio.gov/v1.1/schema
Catalog Describedby https://project-open-data.cio.gov/v1.1/schema/catalog.json
Harvest Object Id cfa4f438-5bdd-4071-8342-46317d4cfb68
Harvest Source Id 2b80d118-ab3a-48ba-bd93-996bbacefac2
Harvest Source Title DOI USGS DCAT-US
Metadata Type geospatial
Old Spatial -118.7305, 41.7102, -117.5065, 42.4003
Source Datajson Identifier True
Source Hash 86aa2f6d99ae203d0bf79721b56ae66eae4695b8c4b6795d9986d5388304a91a
Source Schema Version 1.1
Spatial {"type": "Polygon", "coordinates": -118.7305, 41.7102, -118.7305, 42.4003, -117.5065, 42.4003, -117.5065, 41.7102, -118.7305, 41.7102}

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