Migration Routes of Mule Deer in the San Francisco Peaks Herd in Arizona

In 2008, 13 mule deer were GPS collared near the South Rim of the Grand Canyon to understand the impact of Arizona’s State Route 64 on mule deer movement. Unexpectedly, 4 individuals migrated over 50 miles to summer range near the San Francisco Peaks, north of Flagstaff, containing alpine, subalpine, and ponderosa pine habitats. The GPS collars dropped in 2009, but questions surrounding this long-distance migration remained. In June of 2019, the Arizona Game and Fish Department GPS collared 20 mule deer from the San Francisco Peaks herd on their summer range in Game Management Unit 7E/7W, where an estimated 5,300 mule deer reside. The primary challenges to mule deer in this migration corridor are related to navigating highways. These deer must traverse two major highways, State Route 180 and State Route 64, which experience high traffic volumes from tourists visiting the Grand Canyon. These data provide the location of migration routes for Mule Deer (Odocoileus hemionus) from the San Francisco Peaks Herd in Arizona. They were developed using 6 migration sequences collected from a sample size of 4 adult mule deer comprising GPS locations collected every 2 hours.