The mule deer (Odocoileus hemionus) of the Jemez Springs herd winter in the southwestern Jemez Mountains, south and east of the town of Jemez Springs. The area has experienced two severe wildfires, the Las Conchas and Thompson Ridge fires, within the last decade, burning a total of 180,555 acres. The data used in this report was collected to examine the responses of mule deer to these wildfires and forest restoration treatments. The winter range is located among the foothills of the Jemez Mountains, consisting primarily of pinyon-juniper woodlands. Individuals migrated an average of 26.1 miles, either to the western edge of the Jemez Mountains, near Blue Bird Mesa, or to the Valles Caldera. The central migration route follows the top of a 1,300 foot escarpment that parallels and eventually crosses NM State Route 4 twice. The summer range is dominated by ponderosa pine and mixed-conifer forests, along with open grasslands in the Valles Caldera. The herd is only partially migratory, as resident individuals are found on the winter range and on Lake Fork Mesa, west of the Caldera. State Route 4 may act as a slight obstacle to migration, as one of the larger stopover sites was located between the two road crossings.
These data provide the location of winter ranges for Mule Deer from the Jemez Springs Herd in New Mexico. They were developed from fixed motion variance movement models using 35 migration sequences collected from a sample size of 11 adult mule deer comprising GPS locations collected every 5 or 6 hours.