With 15,510 records, the mule deer is the most recorded mammal in Washington’s atlas, turning up in all 39 counties. Clallam, King, and Pierce counties each hold well over a thousand, and the protected-land record runs from the Daniel J. Evans Wilderness Area and Olympic National Park through the San Juan Islands National Monument and Mount Rainier National Park.
One species, two Washingtons
West of the Cascade crest, Washington’s deer are Columbian black-tailed deer, a coastal form of mule deer that keeps to forest edges, clearings, and brushy openings. On the dry east side, the larger, paler Rocky Mountain mule deer works open slopes, shrub-steppe, and ponderosa parkland. Both are browsers more than grazers, living on shrubs, forbs, new shoots, and mast, which lets them use nearly every habitat the state offers.
Moving with the seasons
Deer show in Washington’s record every month, climbing from spring to a midsummer crest when does bring fawns into the open and high-country animals fan out across snow-free meadows. Come winter, mountain deer drift down to lower elevations and milder slopes, trading deep snow for south-facing feed within reach.
Status in Washington
NatureServe ranks the mule deer S5, Secure, in Washington, and the species is native to the state. USGS NAS does not list it as nonindigenous here.
Full species profile
