Nevada Elk Southern Owyhee Desert Winter Ranges

The Southern Owyhee Desert elk herd follows an east-to-west migration pattern (fig. 40), which is unique for Nevada, where migration routes for many ungulate herds follow mountain ranges from the north to the south. A few low use corridors cross Nevada State Route 789, but several medium and high use corridors intersect Nevada State Route 226 and Interstate 11. During the summer, the herd inhabits the northern parts of the Tuscarora and Independence Mountains, which rise from the southeastern part of Owyhee Desert and demarcate the boundary between the Columbia Plateau and the Great Basin desert in northern Nevada. This summer range partially overlaps with the neighboring Y P Desert elk herd, which also has an east-to-west migratory strategy (refer to the “Y P Desert Elk” section in this report). Elevations range from 5,500 ft (1,676 m), where slopes originate at the desert floor, to 8,602 ft (2,622 m) at McCann Creek Mountain in the northern Tuscarora Mountains, and to 10,208 ft (3,111 m) at Jacks Peak in the Independence Mountains. Summer habitats include vegetative communities typical of the Great Basin desert where, historically, mixed shrubland, composed of sagebrush and rabbitbrush, dominates lower elevations and rises into higher elevations, overlapping with mountain brush species such as antelope bitterbrush, western serviceberry, snowbush, communities of quaking aspen, curl-leaf mountain-mahogany, and fir. Although much of the high-elevation vegetative communities remain intact, a long history of wildfires has converted nearly the entire low and midelevation winter ranges in the southern Owyhee Desert from shrublands to herbaceous vegetation communities. Ongoing restoration efforts actively seek to reverse the spread of invasive cheatgrass, stabilize soils, and provide forage to wildlife by seeding sagebrush and native bunch grasses, such as basin wildrye, Idaho fescue, and nonnative, but beneficial, varieties of wheatgrass and Bassia prostrata (prostrate kochia). Small pockets of intact native shrublands and grasslands still exist on the winter range. The most commonly used winter range is in the southern boundary of the Owyhee Desert, but some individuals migrate longer distances to winter in the Little Humboldt River Study Area, which is more varied topographically but has a similar winter range vegetation community. 
Overall, conversion of habitat from woody to herbaceous plants has benefitted elk in this herd and elsewhere in Nevada (for example, refer to the “Y P Desert Elk” section in this report). Growth for this herd is limited by an annual pulse in spring mortality, which is approximately 20–40 percent of elk each year (C. McKee, Nevada Department of Wildlife, written commun., 2023). Antlerless elk hunts were stopped in 2022, and since then population growth is stable to slightly increasing (T. Allen, Nevada Department of Wildlife, written commun., 2023).
These mapping layers show the location of the migration routes for Elk (Cervus canadensis) in the Southern Owyhee Desert population in Nevada. They were developed from 26 winter sequences collected from a sample size of 45 animals comprising GPS locations collected every 1−13 hours.

Tags: animal-behavior, biota, migration-organisms, migratory-species, nevada, tuscarora, united-states, usgs-67917605d34ea6a4002bfabc
Organization: Department of the Interior