The Great Mule Deer Migration Across Highway 395
California
Twice a year the mountains around you empty and fill with deer. The Round Valley mule deer herd makes one of the longest deer migrations in California, traveling many miles between its winter range on the warm Owens Valley floor and its summer range high in the Sierra. In spring, as the snow melts uphill, the deer climb into the mountains to feed and raise their fawns.
In autumn, driven down by the first storms, they pour back into the lowlands. The trouble is a bottleneck. Near Swall Meadows and the Sherwin Grade the migration corridor squeezes down to a narrow band, pinched between Wheeler Crest on one side and the Owens River Gorge on the other, and Highway Three Ninety Five runs right through the middle of it.
Deer and cars collide here more than almost anywhere else in the Eastern Sierra, with many crashes recorded in recent years. The herd has shrunk considerably over the decades. Conservation groups have worked to protect the corridor and reduce the collisions.
If you drive Highway Three Ninety Five at dawn or dusk in spring or fall, slow down, because you are crossing a highway that the deer have traveled far longer than we have.
