Mule Deer Sheep Creek Herd

Mule deer in the Sheep Creek sub herd are part of the larger Area 6 herd that occupies portions of Elko, Lander, and Eureka counties. Most deer migrate approximately 30 miles from winter ranges in upper Boulder Creek and Antelope Creek drainages to summer ranges on the west side of the Tuscarora Mountains. However, some deer in this population migrate much farther – approximately 80 miles – and connect with mule deer that summer east of the Humboldt River. This deer herd faces several challenges, including migration routes that pass through increased mineral extraction activities in the Carlin Mine area, invasion of exotic annual grasses on winter range, increased wildfires on winter range, and deteriorated range conditions on many stopover sites and winter range due to overgrazing by livestock. This layer's data were collected as part of a project conducted between 2012 and 2019. This dataset was derived from three separate datasets for the Sheep Creek herd obtained via ScienceBase: Winter Range, Stopovers, and Corridors. Due to the need to merge these datasets for visualization purposes, several fields were standardized to account for discrepancies among the source datasets. For example, the original corridor and winter range datasets both include a field named “GRIDCODE,” while the stopover dataset contained a single attribute field named “layer” with a value of 1. The corridor dataset also included an additional field not present in the other two datasets named “details.” For consistency, the “GRIDCODE” field and its associated values were preserved for the corridor and winter range datasets and assigned null values for stopover features. The “details” field was also retained and assigned null values for both stopover and winter range features. The “layer” field from the stopover dataset was removed. For consistency and clarity with other mule deer datasets, four additional fields were added: “Species,” “Herd,” “Use,” and “DataType.” The “Use” field was added to provide an associated use level corresponding to “GRIDCODE” values for easier interpretation and map symbolization. The associated use values are low, medium, high, winter range, and stopover. The “DataType” field represents the type of feature, with values of corridor, stopover, and winter range. Attributes (not all field definitions may be listed): ────────┬───┬──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────── GRIDCODE│ │We delineated low, medium and high-level corridors from population level utilization distributions of animal movements. ────────┼───┼──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────── │0.3│Percent of the winter range of the population. ────────┼───┼──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────── │1 │This value represents the "low use" corridor or the 99% level population footprint of the combined animal utilization distributions. ────────┼───┼──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────── │10 │This value represents the "medium use" corridor or the combined animal utilization distributions for 10% or more of the population. ────────┼───┼──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────── │20 │This value represents the "high use" corridor or the combined animal utilization distributions for 20% or more of the population. ────────┴───┴────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────