Only one mammal in Idaho’s atlas is recorded more often than the mule deer. Its 2,323 records reach 43 of the state’s 44 counties, led by Bannock, Ada, and Valley, a range that runs from Snake River farmland to the high basins of the Sawtooth National Recreation Area.
The deer of open country
Mule deer are built differently from their whitetail relatives: large mule-like ears, a rope-thin black-tipped tail, and a bounding, four-footed gait called stotting that carries them over rough ground. They favor open slopes, sagebrush, and forest edges, browsing shrubs and forbs where whitetails would keep to thicker river-bottom cover.
Following the snowline
Many Idaho herds migrate with the seasons, dropping to low sagebrush winter range as snow deepens and climbing back to mountain summer range in spring. Reports climb from April and crest in June through August, when fawns are on the ground and the high country is open and traveled.
Status in Idaho
NatureServe ranks the mule deer S4, Apparently Secure, in Idaho, and the species is native to the state. USGS NAS does not list it as nonindigenous here.
Full species profile
