Influence of hunting on movements of female mule deer

Abstract

Hunting is a fundamentally important tool for wildlife managers. We examined the null hypothesis that hunting does not influence deer movement and their use of habitat types. Seventeen radio-collared, adult, female Rocky Mountain mule deer (Odocoileus hemionus hemionus) were located 1 day before the 1983 first Colorado deer season, and during day 2 of the first and day 3 of the second deer seasons in the foothills west of Fort Collins, Colorado. Distance from the preseason location to each location during hunting seasons were calculated for each deer. There were no differences between mean distance from pre-hunting season location to hunting season location for 10 deer that had all 3 locations in the area closed to hunting, and 4 deer that had 3 locations in the area open to hunting (P = 0.34 and 0.52). All 17 deer had all 3 locations in the interior of their minimum convex polygon home ranges. Those home ranges had a mean size of 226 ha and range of 117 to 323 ha. However, deer in the section open to hunting generally moved to vegetation types with increasingly better escape cover as the hunting seasons progressed. We conclude that hunting pressure did not cause deer movement in terms of distance or cause them to leave their normal home ranges, but did cause deer to move into more adequate cover.