State Trapping Mule Deer Before Civilization Does

The helicopter radio crackled, breaking the morning calm for the 15 men and one woman hidden in the canyon’s spiny thickets.

Pilot Brian Novak had spotted his quarry, a 100-pound mule deer, and told the ground crew to get ready.

“I’ll bring him down in two, three minutes,” he radioed.

Novak skillfully piloted his chopper over Orange County’s rough backcountry terrain and guided the graceful animal, sprinting just ahead of the noisy aircraft, right into a nylon net.

Within seconds, a state Department of Fish and Game ground crew bolted into action. One pounced on the animal, while another tackled it. A third blindfolded the frightened creature while a fourth hobbled its legs.

So ended the capture of female deer No. 36252. For the next two years, this young doe and 29 other mule deer will wear radio transmitters around their necks as part of Orange County’s first major study of its mule deer population in the Santa Ana Mountains.

Encroachment--including the Irvine Co.’s large-scale 12,300-home development planned for east Orange, the widening of Santiago Canyon Road and the proposed construction of the Eastern Transportation Corridor--could eventually rid this area of its mule deer population and other large mammals unless measures are taken to preserve their habitat, said Gregory Gerstenberg, a Department of Fish and Game wildlife biologist.

On Friday, 14 mule deer--almost half of the number planned for the study--were captured, tagged and released. The hunt for more was expected to continue today.

Formally known as the Eastern Transportation Corridor Deer Telemetry Project, the $135,000 study is designed to reduce deer deaths in connection with construction of the eight-lane highway known as the Eastern Transportation Corridor.

“Nothing is going to be able to cross an eight-lane freeway carrying hundreds of thousands of cars daily,” Gerstenberg said. “But we can provide mitigation measures, possibly recommendations for wildlife underpasses, tunnels of some kind, or even fences, based on the study’s findings.”

Gerstenberg and other naturalists hope to protect, as much as possible, the beauty of the deer’s domain and preserve the county’s backcountry. Up to now, there has never been a study involving large mammals such as mule deer on undeveloped private land, which, in this case, is owned by the Irvine Co.

One official estimated the herd at 3,600 deer, based on a formula of six deer per square mile inside a 600-square-mile area.

Ground-breaking for the corridor is scheduled in 1991 and expected to take four years to complete. It will begin at the Riverside Freeway near the Riverside County line and split into two legs near Santiago Canyon Road in Orange. The west leg will end at Jamboree Road near the Santa Ana Freeway, while the east leg will connect with the Laguna Freeway at the Santa Ana Freeway, for a total of 23 miles of highway.

For Paul Beier, a state consultant involved in a comprehensive study of mountain lions and a cynic on the subject of encroachment, a future ribbon of concrete ferrying motorists is only part of the development equation that leaves him bristling.

“But one of the issues the survey won’t address at all,” Beier said, “is the large numbers of homes” expected to be built in the area during the next two decades.

“They’re talking about building 10,500 homes in Gypsum Canyon alone and a few thousand in another canyon. . . . That’s all habitat lost. So it’s odd to be thinking about mitigation measures such as wildlife underpasses when there won’t be much deer left.”

The Irvine Co. won approval from the Orange City Council for its environmental impact report supporting the inclusion of 7,100 acres of its development in the city of Orange’s sphere of influence. Plans for the area surrounding Irvine Lake include a hotel, civic center, and major recreational area in addition to an industrial sector that could provide 26,000 jobs.

While the Irvine Co. officials boast that the area includes as much as one-third open space--including valuable ridgelines they plan to preserve--activist Sherry Meddick has complained that the developer’s impact report was inadequate because it failed to include data on large mammals, such as mule deer.

A subsequent addition to the developer’s environmental impact report--a compilation of nocturnal sightings of mule deer by Beier--was by Beier’s own admission “inadequate.”

Although much is known about mule deer in general, wildlife biologists concede their knowledge of the animals’ migratory paths, watering holes, diseases and size of herd in the Santa Ana Mountains are not known.

“We need to know as much as possible about these animals,” said John Fisher, a state Fish and Game biologist based in Los Angeles County, who joined the deer capture Thursday.

Fisher spent most of Thursday wrestling the elusive mule deer as they hit hundreds of feet of nylon netting set up in the canyon area. He was part of the team that collected blood samples, helped inject deer with vitamin E, and then outfitted them with the radio transmitters.

“If we don’t act now, this could turn into what happened in the Santa Monica Mountains,” Fisher said. “We had herds cut off because of roads and development, which isolated them because of the 101 (Highway) and Highway 18. It separated the herd and isolated them from each other. One problem was that they breed but if no other animals come into the area, there’s no variability and the species suffers.”

State wildlife biologists contend that mitigation measures for the mule deer, the largest foraging animal in the area, would also help preserve other smaller wildlife, including raccoons, bobcats and mountain lion, which prey on the mule deer.

THE MULE DEER

Origin of name: Large furry ears somewhat like a mule’s ears.

Family: Cervidae.

Genus, 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: 3-3 1/2 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