When Seheri Swint enrolled at Pepperdine she was hoping for an ocean view from her dorm room. Instead, she got a room facing a white wall, dirt, shrubbery and the side of a hill. At first, she was disappointed.
But, Seheri said, “a few weeks into the semester when sitting at my desk, I noticed a family of four or five deer outside of my window. They were so peaceful… it made me happy not to have the ocean view. I loved to watch my deer family.”
Strolling, and sometimes sprinting, around Pepperdine’s campus in groups as big as 12 to 15, mule deer have become a distinctive presence at the Malibu campus.
Weighing up to 200 pounds, mule deer are known for their extra long, donkey-like ears, measuring up to nine inches long at times. Mule deer are approximately six feet long and three and a half feet high.
Their natural habitat, at least in the Santa Monica Mountains, is the chaparral shrub community. Pepperdine University Chairperson of the Natural Science Division and Professor Rodney L. Honeycutt stated that “in general, deer are considered an edge species that relies on browsing rather than grazing. This is one reason why they visit landscapes, such as seen on our campus.”
Honeycutt added: “As you may have noticed, most of the groups consist of adult and yearling females with young of the year. This is normal in that females tend to form stable groups consisting of a matriarch and her daughters and offspring. Males become more common on campus during the fall, as this is the mating season or rut.”
Honeycutt said there is a cycle of use by deer on campus. “After the rainy season, species of chaparral produce new leaves and buds upon which the deer feed,” Honeycutt explained. “During this period, they use our campus to a lesser extent. Nevertheless, as the dry season approaches during the summer and fall, they tend to use our campus more, primarily because the native chaparral species become less nutritious for deer. During extended periods of drought, deer become less selective in terms of browse.
“This is one reason why they destroyed the English ivy near the parking lot across from the Law School. They also love to eat plants around homes on campus. My hibiscus is of particular interest to them. It has survived numerous deer acts.”
Honeycutt adds that the major predators of deer are coyotes, mountain lions, and cars. “Small fawns are heavily predated by coyotes, and our local mountain lion take many adults and juveniles. On campus, deer are more likely to be killed by cars. This is one reason why people should not provide corn along the roadsides. This increases the deer density and enhances the probability of car-deer collisions.”
Mule deer are most commonly found throughout the western region of the United States in a wide variety of habitats, and tend not to migrate. The quantity of deer in a region is dependent on a number of factors.
According to the Western Association of Fish and Wildlife Agencies, “Most of the mule deer range in this [western] region is in private ownership, and fire suppression is a high priority for residents. This region is in a fire adapted habitat, and frequent fires occurred before European settlement. Frequent fires rejuvenate the habitat and improve forage for mule deer. Fire suppression results in infrequent, large, hot fires. The lack of fire results in older, less nutritious plants for mule deer. [As for the weather,] summer and early fall is a difficult time for mule deer because of little rainfall, and dry plants with little nutritional value. Nursing does need high quality forage to nurse fawns and build body reserves for the coming winter.”
After the fires in Malibu in 2007, lots of nutritious plants grew from the scorched soil. This caused many mule deer to flock to the area. Since then, the deer presence in the Malibu has increased drastically.
“In the past year and a half of being at Pepperdine, I have noticed an increase of deer on campus,” said Pepperdine student Lourdes Lopez.
The deer can be seen hanging around the student housing, on sides of the mountains, behind cars, occasionally surprising students when they are not paying attention to where they are walking or driving.
“One morning when I was walking down Lower Dorm Row, suddenly, a huge stampede of deer went careening down the hill right in front of me” freshman Tibby Tedemet said. “They ran between Lower and Upper Dorm Roads, between Crocker and J Pengilly, and down towards the Tennis Pavilion without slowing down. It wasn’t five deer, but about twenty of them. They didn’t stop for people at all, they just kept going!
“I was lucky that I heard them heading toward me because I was only about a foot away from being trampled.”
The fall temperatures have been mild in Malibu, and the mule deer love the climate. Now that the mountain lion population has been in the news quite a bit this past year, Malibu locals have had their eyes open for any unwanted intruders. Pepperdine’s faculty and students are no exception. Just this past spring there have been multiple sightings of mountain lions on campus.
“At 7:10 this morning, a student reported a second mountain lion sighting in the undergraduate living area…” reported the Pepperdine University’s Public Safety in an email to students and faculty. “As a reminder, mountain lions roam the Santa Monica mountain range and are occasionally observed on campus…if you encounter one, remain calm, do not approach the animal, and do not run because this could trigger the lion’s predatory instinct.”
This awareness has caused some concern on Pepperdine students and Malibu residents alike. Some are even afraid.
“It was terrifying to find out a mountain lion was roaming the campus” exclaimed Pepperdine student Niki Babian.
The mountain lion may be coming to campus because there are so many deer on campus. Just over a month ago, there was a reporting of a killed male mountain lion near the Santa Monica Mountains. Before it was killed, poachers mutilated the animal.
This sense of fear of the lions has caused an increased sentiment toward the animals around Malibu. As long as this sentiment continues, mule deer are more than ever protected from both fire and predators.
There may be only one thing mule deer should be concerned about. Since fire prevention is key to keeping Malibu functioning, this causes soil to get less fertile. With less fertile soil, the quantity of plants will decrease, causing there to be less food for the mule deer to eat. If the population of deer is increasing, then, of course, the food supply is decreasing.
So while the population of deer may be increasing, eventually it may be to their detriment.
Over time, the food issue could cause the deer population to begin to die out over time or migrate away from Pepperdine’s campus. The Western Association of Fish and Wildlife Agencies states that to improve the habitat for the mule deer, one must:
1. Use fire to stimulate sprouts of shrubs over a large landscape.
2. Stimulate new growth of desired plants using light livestock grazing.
3. Minimize effects of livestock along streams and uplands to improve forage for mule deer on fall and winter ranges.
In the meantime, students like Swint are enjoying their new-found friends. Big ears and all.