LaRC
Southern Rockies Ecological Forecasting II
Oh Deer! Where Are the Mule Deer Going?
			   						  
>> Amanda: Odocoileus hemionus, known commonly as mule deer, are a keystone species native to North America and promote a diverse ecosystem to the Southern Rocky region. Mule deer not only play a vital role in their ecosystem, but also to the local economy of the Southern Rockies. Mule deer hunters contribute millions of dollars to the local economies through lodging, licenses, supplies, food, and gas purchases during each hunting season. The money in turn contributes to the overall economic growth of this region. 

>> Amanda: Over the past decade, the Southern Rockies has seen a steady decline in mule deer.Unable to determine what is causing this decline, our team has set out to ascertain what factors have played a role in mule deer’s disappearance by looking at land specifically in the Southern Rockies Landscape Conservation Cooperative. The SRLCC, comprised of land in the states of Wyoming, Idaho, Nevada, Utah, Colorado, Arizona, and New Mexico, has both low canyons and high mountains with peaks that reach up to 14,000 feet. This region has also become more developed, and as a result, there have been increases in anthropogenic features. Oil and natural gas well pads and pipelines, fences, roads, and buildings, have become obtrusive, or completely destroyed mule deer’s migratory corridors.  Mule deer have begun to migrate earlier and move faster in order to move quickly past such anthropogenic structures.

>> Amanda: Our project aimed to use NASA’S earth observations to create maps which show the best locations for corridors that can be used during mule deer’s migration.Landsat 5 Thematic Mapper and Landsat 8 Operational Land Imager, which has a 30m resolution was downloaded and used for land cover identification.MODIS Moderatate-resolution imaging spectroradiometer sensors Aqua and Terra which each have a 1km resolution were used to create the Forwarn climate data which we then clipped and ran unsupervised classifications on. 

[pause]

>> Amanda: The MODIS Forwarn Vegetation phenology layers from the years 2011-2014 were uploaded into ArcMap and then clipped down to a more manageable size. Additionally, a slope map was created from the Aster DEM and clipped along with a temperature and a precipitation layer that was provided by Prism Climate data. The MODIS Vegetation Phenology data was then uploaded into ERDAS Imagine and an unsupervised classification was run using isodata and classified into 30 separate, distinct classes. The slope, temperature, and precipitation layers were later incorporated into the final mule deer suitability maps to locate prime areas that mule deer stay during the summer and winter months and their migration corridors in-between to aid our partners in locating protection areas to aid the falling mule deer population.

>> Amanda:To analyze our data, we generated clipped maps of the LCC boundary for precipitation, temperature, slope, and vegetation phenology. (Video starts with vegetation phenology layer being added to ArcMap/ERDAS/whatevez).First, we added a clipped boundary layer of the vegetation phenology to see areas of high and low plant coverage. This was essential to figure out where potential mule deer habitats persist the best.(As the next layer, for slope is added to the video) Next, we added a clipped boundary layer for slope. This was used to look at elevation in order to see probable, easy access land corridors for the mule deer.After that, a layer for temperature and a layer for precipitation were added to the ArcMap/ERDAS/whatevez  to see what areas are best for mule deer during both their winter and summer habitats. 

>> Amanda: Our partners for this project were the Western Association of Fish and Wildlife Agencies Mule Deer Working Group and the Southern Rockies Landscape Conservation Cooperative. Both organizations currently monitor mule deer throughout the LLC boundary.