Massive Deer Herd Fell To Death Near Bishop Pass

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Messages 1 - 28 of total 28 in this topic
rwedgee

Ice climber
CA
Topic Author's Original Post - Nov 20, 2017 - 07:48am PT
Repost

"Brad was down at Mac's Sporting Goods and got the whole story on this. Apparently last night, these deer and many, many others (around 100 deer) were trying to make their way to their wintering grounds on this side of the mountains and hit ice on very steep areas. From below Lone Pine to Bishop Pass these deer hit the ice and tumbled down the steep boulders to their deaths, or to mortal injury. Brad was told that the couple in the picture were actually slitting the throats of the mortally injured in order to put them out of their pain. In the nearly 40 years I've been in this Valley, I have never heard of such a terrible tragedy happening to our deer herds. They suffered 4 years of drought, then a terrible winter with a devastating winter die-off, and now this. It will take many years for our herds to rebuild from this loss."














High Fructose Corn Spirit

Gym climber
Nov 20, 2017 - 07:50am PT
Wow.

Any other pics showing more of the scene?
Lennox

climber
in the land of the blind
Nov 20, 2017 - 08:01am PT

From below Lone Pine to Bishop Pass . . .


What doe this mean? We’re there multiple incidents?
hossjulia

Trad climber
Carson City, NV
Nov 20, 2017 - 08:01am PT
The bucks tend to hang back and wait till hunting season is over before heading out of the high country. I suspect it's cause/effect but really don't know.
Does anyone know if the hunting permits for this zone were reduced after last winters die off?
What a tragedy. Mule deer are a favorite of mine. I often have had the desire to study them and they seem to like me.
Does especially seem to like bedding down near me while backpacking. Had one follow me for 2 days in Le Conte canyon.
Very sad news.
Don Lauria

Trad climber
Bishop, CA
Nov 20, 2017 - 08:11am PT
This happened at the same spot back in the 80s ... are you sure this isn't fake news?
micronut

Trad climber
Fresno/Clovis, ca
Nov 20, 2017 - 08:11am PT
Pretty common.......I'd say "tragedy" or is pretty strong language. Migration is dangerous business. We "spectators" find these events hard to see but it truly is part of the cycle of life. Its like watching a rabbit flee from a bobcat on Nat Geo. We find ourselves cheering for the pretty little rabbit rather than the hungry bobcat. If we had a birds-eye view of an entire migration we might find it quite startling to watch the decay rate from point A to point B. Large parts of herds die swimming, slipping, starving, all year every year. Welcome to the wild.
ionlyski

Trad climber
Polebridge, Montana
Nov 20, 2017 - 08:18am PT
We wouldn't have wolverines without those kinds of accidents, including avalanches. Life and death.
canyoncat

Social climber
SoCal
Nov 20, 2017 - 08:29am PT
The homeless will be having venison for Thanksgiving.
AP

Trad climber
Calgary
Nov 20, 2017 - 08:32am PT
How large are the herds?
I have seen herds of hundreds of antelope but never such large numbers of deer together
10b4me

Mountain climber
Retired
Nov 20, 2017 - 08:44am PT
I've read other reports saying that forty died, and it was caused by rockfall.
Edit: the guy, seen in the picture, was one of two people who were supposedly slitting the throats of the survivors( to put them out of their misery).
limpingcrab

Trad climber
the middle of CA
Nov 20, 2017 - 09:17am PT

Nov 20, 2017 - 08:32am PT
How large are the herds?
I don't have numbers from scientific studies, but on a slope in the SW edge of SEKI I lost count at 160 one year. My friends and I kept watching and estimate we lost count at less than half of the total number that walked by. It was pretty awesome.
Reilly

Mountain climber
The Other Monrovia- CA
Nov 20, 2017 - 09:23am PT
^^^^ That sounds a great experience, Limpie. To put it in perspective when Lewis and Clark
were floating down the Missouri they passed a bison herd they estimated to be 7 miles long
and up to a mile wide, and densely packed!
rwedgee

Ice climber
CA
Topic Author's Reply - Nov 20, 2017 - 09:36am PT
This year the tags in both X9a & X9B were cut from ~600 each to about 200 in each zone, tags are bucks only. It previously took 4 or 5 years to draw a tag in one of those zones so times that by 3 so about 12 years to draw. The deer didn't go back up this year until July because of heavy snow and they will stay up until the weather chases them down, not the hunters. Conditions were perfect for this type of tragedy, a late winter and an iced up migration route. It happens every year to some extent but never this bad.
Highway 168 is the border with X9A to the North & X9B to the South.
https://nrm.dfg.ca.gov/FileHandler.ashx?DocumentID=83674&inline
https://nrm.dfg.ca.gov/FileHandler.ashx?DocumentID=83675&inline
limpingcrab

Trad climber
the middle of CA
Nov 20, 2017 - 09:41am PT
That would be a lot scarier, Reilly
rwedgee

Ice climber
CA
Topic Author's Reply - Nov 20, 2017 - 10:36am PT
The place in question is like the main trail on Mt Whitney switchbacks where they put the cable up, if it's icy you're going over the side.
87 deer didn't get caught in a rockfall as it wasn't a single event in a single day. Have you ever been to Bishop pass ?

"I imagine the herd was standing on the edge of a cliff that collapsed"

please think this through
(historical photo)

drF

Trad climber
usa
Nov 20, 2017 - 01:09pm PT
Found a small pile(3-4 deer) at the ORG one time near Pick Pocket if memory serves me correctly. Something prolly spooked them and they followed the leader the wrong way over the edge.
ec

climber
ca
Nov 20, 2017 - 03:42pm PT
Chupacabra
TLP

climber
Nov 20, 2017 - 03:51pm PT
The ecological situations pertaining to white-tailed deer in the eastern U.S. and to mule deer (specifically the subspecies present in the Sierra) are completely different; the item linked above is completely irrelevant to the present thread. The incredible population explosion of white-tailed deer is indeed causing some ecological disruption, including some formerly common plant species that are important to the whole ecosystem having become rare. (Not too concerned about people's yards and gardens being raided - deal with it.) And there are just about no predators there. The West has robust populations of coyotes and mountain lions which keep the deer numbers in check.

Regarding the herd sizes, mule deer spend most of the year in small groups, but in migration, especially fall migration which has pretty specific weather triggers, they can herd up in really big numbers on the east side of the Sierra. I've seen hundreds crossing Hwy 395. It's really dramatic.
madbolter1

Big Wall climber
Denver, CO
Nov 20, 2017 - 04:23pm PT
100 dead? Yikes!

Was the shooter killed or arrested, or did ze commit suicide?
clinker

Trad climber
Santa Cruz, California
Nov 20, 2017 - 05:08pm PT
Ban ice, snow, water, and steam, they are all killers.
10b4me

Mountain climber
Retired
Nov 20, 2017 - 06:24pm PT
Gee 10b...we can read...that info is in the OP.

I just reposted it for the people who lack reading comprehension skills. . . . . . .
Ksolem

Trad climber
Monrovia, California
Nov 20, 2017 - 06:31pm PT
I hope they had something more than a Swiss Army Knife to finish off those poor creatures. Man, that sounds like a mess.

Back in my dirtbag daze we used to hike up to the Gunks carriage road from the lowest hairpin to avoid giving precious beer money to the Mohonk Trust Ranger. On more than one occasion we came across mangled deer carcasses who had obviously fallen quite a ways.
madbolter1

Big Wall climber
Denver, CO
Nov 20, 2017 - 06:36pm PT
madbolter1...100 dead is right! I am surprised there isn't a call for more gun control.

Ohhh, the humanity. Uh, I mean the mammanity.
Kalimon

Social climber
Ridgway, CO
Nov 20, 2017 - 07:38pm PT
Tragic . . . There was an incident involving an elk herd running off a cliff in the upper Mill Creek/Pack Basin near Telluride.

The buck in the initial photo is huge . . . almost looks like an elk. There appear to be boulders mingled with the animals, perhaps they triggered rockslides as they fell.
Lennox

climber
in the land of the blind
Nov 20, 2017 - 07:43pm PT
madbolter1

Big Wall climber
Denver, CO

Nov 20, 2017 - 04:23pm PT
100 dead? Yikes!

Was the shooter killed or arrested, or did ze commit suicide?


Jody

climber
Occupied Territory

Nov 20, 2017 - 04:43pm PT
madbolter1...100 dead is right! I am surprised there isn't a call for more gun control.




madbolter1

Big Wall climber
Denver, CO

Nov 20, 2017 - 06:36pm PT
madbolter1...100 dead is right! I am surprised there isn't a call for more gun control.

Ohhh, the humanity. Uh, I mean the mammanity.









fail

aspendougy

Trad climber
Los Angeles, CA
Nov 20, 2017 - 07:48pm PT
The huge buck in the photo appears to be partially pinned down by a large rock on top of him. This suggests rockfall rather than mass slippage on an icy slope
fear

Ice climber
hartford, ct
Nov 20, 2017 - 08:23pm PT
The buck stops here.
TLP

climber
Nov 20, 2017 - 09:44pm PT
xCon, I don't know about the ecological situation of deer in the Rockies. There are 7 subspecies of mule/blacktailed deer, the one with by far the most extensive geographic range is the Rocky Mtn. mule deer, which just extends to the east side of the Sierra (also north almost to Alaska and south about halfway down Arizona and New Mexico, I think). I know that overpopulation of white-tailed deer has messed up the eastern forest ecosystem somewhat (though for that matter, so has the lowly introduced earthworm). My guess is that this is less of a problem, or no problem, with mule deer in the Rockies, because there are plenty of non-human predators, plus probably more human hunters, or anyways more successful ones than in the northeast. Deer tags are very highly sought after in the states that I know about from friends who hunt, and as someone posted up earlier, the state wildlife agencies census and manage the populations as best they can for sustainability.

Probably the biggest issue for western mountain deer populations is development within winter range, which is pretty constrained to begin with. Also rampant development with highways, dogs, etc. within migration routes which are more narrow than most people think. Deer depend heavily on good foraging (open scrubland especially) in mountain foothills for stopover foraging during migration, and that's also perfect resort subdivision locations. It's pretty tough on them.

And thanks for the ping of the Sci Am. article even though it's a different species and situation. I was worried you might think I was flaming away about it not being relevant, didn't mean it negatively that way at all. Just that it's different here. If you've never seen the eastside mid-Sierra herd in movement on that one night when they finally all say, OK, that's it, we're about to get snowed in and die, let's hit it, it's a magnificent sight. They just flood across 395 completely not bothering that there's traffic. And everyone just stops in awe. One of the cooler natural phenomena you can have the good fortune to witness in California or anywhere. It's really sad so many of them perished in this natural mini-disaster, but they'll bounce back, as long as they get a few good years. Send the garbage bears from Mammoth up there, they'll clean up the mess in no time.
Messages 1 - 28 of total 28 in this topic
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