Cooperative Fish and Wildlife Research Units Program: Colorado
Education, Research and Technical Assistance for Managing Our Natural Resources

Colorado Parks and Wildlife (CPW) initiated a research project in 2017 to examine predator-prey dynamics between cougars and mule deer in the Upper Arkansas drainage within the South East region of Colorado. This is a 9 year study that is generating a tremendous amount of data on both deer and cougars. These data include GPS location data for deer (does and fawns) across all years of the study. While these data are important to the original study objectives it will not be used to its fullest potential, including a thorough examination of habitat use and movement patterns of mule deer in this area. While such research has been conducted on the western slope of Colorado, where mule deer are largely migratory, very little research has been conducted on the eastern slope. Therefore, there is a great opportunity to leverage these data to learn more about mule deer in this area and on a predominantly non-migratory population.