Heavy snow forces deer into Reno area, dozens killed on I-80

RENO - Recent heavy snowfall in the Reno-Lake Tahoe area is taking a deadly toll on deer, and some people want state officials to do something about it.

The deep snowpack has forced the starving animals out of the hills and into neighborhoods along the eastern Sierra Nevada, where scores have been struck and killed by vehicles in their search for food.

More than 60 mule deer alone have been killed on Interstate 80 in the Reno area since Jan. 12, Nevada Department of Wildlife officials said.

At least a dozen others were killed on U.S. 395 in the Reno area, and more died on other roads, officials said.

"This is the most serious situation we've seen for a very, very long time," Nevada Transportation Department spokesman Scott Magruder said. "You just don't see these kind of numbers. This is a lot of deer."

Powerful back-to-back winter storms in late December and early January dumped up to 20 feet of snow in the Lake Tahoe area and 6 feet of snow in the Reno area.

Wildlife officials have received about 400 calls from residents over the last month, many suggesting the state feed the animals to help them through the winter.

Scott Huber, biologist at Truckee Meadows Community College, agreed the state should start a supplemental feeding program to help deer survive the winter.

"They (Nevada officials) have got a political thing they're concerned with, but I think they're turning a blind eye to it," Huber said.

Nevada wildlife biologists insist the feeding program would not work here because the state is home to hundreds of small herds. Other states that feed deer typically have greater concentrations of the animals clustered closer together, they said.

"You can't feed a deer herd that's scattered all over the place like this," said Mike Dobel, biologist for the state wildlife department.

The snowpack is a relatively minor problem compared to the region's explosive growth that's gobbling up crucial winter habitat for the deer, Dobel added.

Over the last 15 years or so, development has covered the sagebrush-covered eastern Sierra foothills that deer need for winter survival and cut off key migration routes.

Had not so much habitat already been lost, Dobel said, the deer could more easily deal with the heavy snowfall.

Along the eastern Sierra from Reno to Topaz Lake near the California line, an estimated 12,000 mule deer thrived in the early 1950s, wildlife officials said. That number now is down to about 2,000.

Up to 90 percent of this year's fawns could die over the winter and as much as half of the adult deer population in parts of the eastern Sierra also might die, officials said.

Dobel foresees a grim future for the eastern Sierra's mule deer.

"We've lost that deer herd," he said. "I hate to be negative, but I just don't see anything positive for mule deer along the Sierra front."