limited time was evident from this study. This type of 

 information would seldom be discovered during short-term 

 investigations. For example, for about a month during April, 

 mule deer would occasionally bed within the Douglas fir type, 

 but feed almost exclusively within the Sagebrush-Grassland, 

 Shale-Artemisia, or other open types. The latter are the 

 first sites on which new, succulent green forage becomes 

 available. Thus, substantial use of these types for only 1 

 month out of 12 may significantly increase the energy balance 

 equation of the deer. 



Similarly, data collected during the severe winters of 

 1977-78 and 1978-79 (Chapter 8) indicated that small, seldom 

 used areas provided "critical" winter range during those 

 years. The importance of those areas certainly could not have 

 been predicted based on the poor quantity and quality of 

 forage on the sites. 



Our interpretation of the relative importance of habitat 

 types and areas is vastly different from that usually inherent 

 in the "key species-key area" concept. A variety of areas and 

 types were critical to survival of deer over time. Except on 

 a frequency of operation basis, one could not be separated out 

 as more critical or "key" than another. Some were "critical" 

 every year, but others, perhaps critical only once every 10 

 years, were just as necessary to long-term survival of 

 existing deer populations. 



Allowing oneself to be badgered into designating certain 

 areas as more critical than others by resource development- 

 extraction agencies or groups results in sacrifice of areas 

 which can be of equal importance. The sacrifice of areas that 

 are of less frequent critical importance leads to insidious 

 long-term declines or declines that may occur abruptly long 

 after the causative event. 



The essentials of mule deer habitat, then, are a place to 

 live and adequate diversity to provide options for maintaining 

 a positive energy balance. In the natural environment, we 

 cannot over-emphasize the preservation of diversity. Deer 

 populations will fluctuate with the environment, but diversity 

 will ensure that any one event is less likely to be 

 catastrophic. Population characteristics and dynamics will 

 generally follow diversity. The greater the diversity in an 

 environment, the more stable the dynamics. Populations with 

 fewer options to counter severe environmental events will be 

 subject to wider fluctuations. 



Dynamics can also be stabilized by the "domestication" of 

 intensive management. For more intensively managed 

 situations, there are substitutes for natural diversity. We 

 can, for example, raise deer in pens in parking lots by 



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