Ever More Dear : Habitat Losses Decimating Deer

The 280-pound buck deer hobbled helplessly on the beach, both legs broken, as two uniformed police officers approached with drawn service revolvers.

The Laguna Beach officers regretted what they had to do. It took 22 rounds from their pistols to put the animal out of its misery.

“Nobody likes to get in a situation where you’ve got to shoot this thing,” Sgt. Greg Bartz said of the recent incident.

The buck had sealed its doom when it crossed busy Coast Highway in pursuit of food and water and apparently was struck by a vehicle.

Take Chance With Traffic

Usually, Bartz said, deer are too timid to cross the highway, but with development closing in from all sides, more and more deer are taking their chances with traffic--and losing.

Traffic is not the only threat to the few remaining mule deer that populate the south county’s San Joaquin Hills. Each turn of earth from a bulldozer eliminates grazing land. And each new road and highway isolates the deer from other herds, forcing them to interbreed.

And with a multilane toll road and tens of thousands of new homes and businesses planned for the hills, the future for the San Joaquin deer herd can be described only as bleak.

“The problem is insurmountable,” Laguna Beach wildlife biologist Peter Ott said. “We will lose a good majority of our deer. What we have left will be in isolated pockets on reserves.”

No one knows exactly how many deer are left in the San Joaquin Hills, or, for that matter, in all of Orange County.

About 150 deer live in the unincorporated wildlands north of Laguna Beach, while several dozen more inhabit the scattered pockets of wilderness south of Laguna.

Countywide, the herd was estimated at 6,000 in 1952, the last time a definitive count was undertaken. Although there has been no recent countywide count, hunting results reflect a sharp decline in the population.

In 1960, hunters bagged 278 bucks in the county’s rugged backcountry, state Department of Fish and Game figures show. By 1970, the number had dropped to 158; last year it was 61.

Hunting is not allowed in the San Joaquin Hills.

Fish and Game biologists said state figures show that the deer habitat in the county has shriveled from 7,500 square miles in 1952 to 500 today.

Many smaller wild animals, such as opossums, raccoons and skunks, have adapted to the county’s new urban environment by feeding off garbage and living under porches, said Dr. Richard H. Evans, co-founder of the Pacific Wildlife Project, a nonprofit group that treats injured and orphaned animals and birds at its Laguna Niguel clinic.

But deer require extensive grazing, about 30 acres each, and have not been able to fit in, Evans said.

If too many animals are crowded together, he said, the younger deer will be forced out to starve or be hit on the roads; the rest will face decimation through disease and inbreeding.

Nowhere is the situation more critical for deer than in the San Joaquin Hills. Bounded on all sides by development, the deer are now cut off from their cousins in the Santa Ana Mountains.

Isolated by Development

Burkett said coastal and mountain deer used to intermingle and breed by traveling up and down drainage creeks. But now, with highways surrounding the hills and many of those drainage tributaries closed for development, the deer are isolated.

That has created an unhealthy situation, Burkett said, because deer, as well as other wildlife species, need to breed outside their families to maintain a safe genetic line. Inbreeding causes dangerous genetic defects that can ultimately wipe out the population.

In the last three years, housing tracts have been going up at a hellbent pace in the Laguna Niguel area, leaving deer stranded in little islands of wilderness.

“You’re kind of isolating the animals almost like putting a fence in, and if they want to get out, they’ve got to cross the road and risk their lives,” wildlife biologist Ott said.

New developments also block the trails that deer use to find food and water, Ott said. The animals then wander onto roads--and into the paths of motorists.

On Aug. 19, for instance, a Mission Viejo family returning from a day at the beach crashed into a 200-pound buck in the fast lane of Crown Valley Parkway. The family was unhurt, but the buck was killed on impact.

“They were being hit right and left when (the Irvine community of) Turtle Rock first opened eight to 10 years ago,” said a longtime employee with the Irvine Co. who did not want to be named.

50 to 100 Seen Daily

“I used to see 50 to 100 (live deer) in one day,” said the employee, whose job takes him into the company’s 20,000 acres of back country in the hills between Newport and Laguna Beach on a regular basis. “Now, I see maybe three, and a lot of times zero.”

Ken Smith, a ranger at Crystal Cove State Park near Laguna, said more deer will crowd into the relatively cramped confines of that 2,300-acre preserve as the planned San Joaquin Hills Transportation Corridor and the 2,600-home Irvine Coast project slice their way through the hills.

The Irvine Co. has targeted 10,000 acres for its Irvine Coast project between Corona del Mar and Laguna Beach. The San Joaquin Hills Corridor is to run through 15 miles inland, connecting Newport Beach with Mission Viejo.

The toll road is at least two years away from construction. Construction of the first access road for the Irvine Coast is scheduled to begin in October.

275-Acre Loss of Habitat

County planning officials recognize the threat to deer and other wildlife posed by the corridor. In a recent environmental impact report, the county’s Environmental Management Agency planning staff said that construction of the corridor would destroy up to 275 acres of habitat and that “a significant adverse impact (to wildlife) will remain.”

Another development threat comes on the eastern flank of the hills, where the Mission Viejo Co. is carving up great chunks of deer habitat for its 20,000-home Aliso Viejo planned community south of El Toro Road. When grading on the project started a year ago, residents in nearby Laguna Canyon said they could immediately tell the difference.

“The deer were all over on this side after that,” said Marin Blacketer, a canyon resident and co-chairwoman of the Laguna Canyon Conservancy, which wants to preserve Laguna Canyon from development. “We had close to 35 to 40 deer in the Big Bend area (of the canyon road).”

Blacketer said the deer are a nuisance to residents because they eat everything in sight. She said that she began feeding them alfalfa after they began eating away the poison oak that serves as a protection against mudslides on the hill above her home.

Chewing Up Gardens

Evans of the Pacific Wildlife Project said he has received a dozen reports in the last year of deer wandering down out of the hills to chew up trees and gardens in residential neighborhoods of Laguna Beach and Laguna Niguel.

Evans was driving on Crown Valley Parkway one recent evening when he spotted “30 to 40” deer moving en masse toward a residential neighborhood.

“When you see that many deer going into a development,” he said, “something is not right.”

THE MULE DEER Origin of name: Large furry ears somewhat like a mule’s ears. Family: Cervidae. Species: Odocoileus hemionus. Habitat: Southern Yukon and Manitoba in Canada to Baja California and northern Mexico. They seek enough vegetation for concealment but avoid dense forests. Height: 3 to 3.5 feet. Weight: Up to 280 pounds. Speed: Can run up to 40 m.p.h. Diet: Grass, weeds, shrubs, twigs, mushrooms, nuts and lichens. Summer grazer. Coloring: Summer, reddish brown; winter, brownish gray. Antlers: Shed from January to March; grow April to May, losing velvet August to September. Full size by fourth or fifth year. Natural enemies: Mountain lions, jaguars, eagles, large snakes. Source: Encyclopedia Americana Number of deer bucks killed by hunters in Orange County 1960: 278 1970: 158 1980: 82 1987: 61 Deer are hunted primarily in the Santa Ana Mountains area of the county. Deer hunting is not permitted in the San Joaquin Hills. Source: California Department of Fish and Game