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Washington Mule Deer Researchers Study Droppings

WENATCHEE, Wash. (AP) _ Sometimes the science is in the poop.

GPS units, compasses and tape measures in hand, a group of eight mostly volunteer scientists surveyed sagebrush and windblown wheat grass on the hills far above Wenatchee three days last week. They were looking for poop pellets that might reveal the mule deer's preference for tasty fall and late winter browsing.

"Here's a big old pile," shouted veteran Chelan-Douglas Land Trust volunteer Diane McKenzie, as if she had found a stash of gold nuggets among the sagebrush and flowering balsamroot.

"We should have good luck on this one. They're everywhere," added John Dykes, a much younger, first-time volunteer who took time off his hotel desk manager job.

"It's a good excuse to be out in the hills," Dykes said about the task that had him crawling through the dirt with clipboard detailing fresh versus dried black pellets.

The work also suited Ben Knecht, a retired physician who said he loves the outdoors. "I wanted to experience new things in life and I've never counted deer poop before," he said.

Their bountiful find was an exciting contrast to the lack of pellets found earlier on the former wheat fields about 100 yards away.

The poop-finding mission was organized by the Chelan-Douglas Land Trust. The Land Trust manages about 1,500 acres of former wheat land at the end of Horse Lake Road.

The land was acquired from the Burts and Wallace families in 2006. The land — known as the Horse Lake Reserve — is next to the 960-acre Home Water Wildlife Preserve, owned by Chelan County PUD. The popular Sage Hills Trail and Homestead Trail pass through the properties. The trails are closed between December 1 and April or May to allow wintering wildlife — mainly mule deer — to use as a winter sanctuary. The Sage Hills Trail reopened April 1. The newer Homestead Trail reopens May 1.

The poop study is a research project to determine how many deer use the Land Trust property during the winter and find out what forage suits them best, said Neal Hedges, a wildlife biologist and Land Trust stewardship coordinator.

Earlier studies have shown that the deer prefer the native shrub-steppe plant species — bunch grass, bitterbrush, sagebrush and wildflowers — to wheat grass that grows on the former agricultural lands. The wheat grass was planted on much of the former wheat land in the 1980s when the farms were first converted to conservation reserve, he said. Some of the land was replanted again in 2001 with a plant mix that included more native plants.

The current study is to get an accurate idea of how many deer browse the land — the estimate is about 200 — and determine the value of restoring the land to native shrub-steppe plant species. A habitat consultant went out with Hedges on Friday to discuss how replanting could be done.

"We want to get qualitative data to justify closing the area in winter," Hedges said. The data will also serve as baseline information to compare future studies if and when the land is replanted, he said.

The study uses a system developed by John Lehmkuhl, a researcher at the U.S. Forest Service Forestry Sciences Laboratory in Wenatchee. Lehmkuhl developed a GPS grid over the reserve and a formula for estimating deer population based on the collected poop data.

Volunteers located the points on portable GPS units. From those points, they measured out a 50 meter line and then documented deer pellets found within a few feet of the line.

While two groups of volunteers were finding few pellets in the tall wheat grass, McKenzie, Dykes and Knecht were as excited as hungry mule deer with their finds in the native brush.

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