"Now, a team of researchers at the University of Wyoming and Wyoming Game and Fish Department have conclusively determined that the deer who walk the farthest end up the fattest and live the longest. The farther they walk, the more calories they find as they reach lush mountain meadows teeming with high-protein groceries. And because they get fatter, they carry more fawns to term."
""The migrating mule deer are the engine" for the whole population, said Anna Ortega, lead author on a recent paper published in the journal Current Biology. "If you sever that migration, you will have far fewer animals." The conclusion is another remarkable finding from an even more remarkable study, one that required researchers to use helicopters to capture and study hundreds of deer every spring and fall for nearly a decade."
Mule deer in southwest Wyoming's Red Desert follow three seasonal strategies: remain in place, move about 70 miles to foothills, or migrate up to 150 miles to mountain meadows. Long-distance migrants reach lush, high-protein alpine forage, accumulate more fat, carry more fawns to term, and live longer than residents. Field teams captured and monitored hundreds of deer each spring and fall over nearly a decade, measured fat and pregnancy status, and tracked fawn survival. Migratory individuals generate disproportionate reproduction and survival for the population. Severing these migrations would markedly reduce overall population size and productivity.
Read at High Country News
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