South Hills closes for the winter
KIMBERLY, Idaho (KMVT/KSVT) — Starting Jan. 16, the Bureau of Land Management will implement a closure to motor vehicles in the South Hills.
Roads leading into, or connected to Dry Gulch, Dry Creek, Indian Springs, Cherry Spring and North Cottonwood will be closed to all motorized traffic, including e-bikes.
Heather Tiel-Nelson, the Public Affairs specialist for the Bureau of Land Management said this is done to protect wildlife that use the area during the winter.
“It’s intended to help protect wintering herds of mule deer as well as prevent any kind of resource damage. It’s a prime area for sage grouse habitat,” Tiel-Nelson said.
According to the BLM, it helps minimize the disturbance of mule deer residing in the area. Bradley Dawson, the Regional Technical Assistance Manager for the Idaho Department of Fish and Game said mule deer can subsist on sagebrush in the area during the winter. Still, they rely on their fat reserves to survive.
“There’s not a lot of food out there and so if they have to do a lot of running around trying to get away from people, that really helps them run through their energy reserves a lot faster. And so they are a lot more likely to starve and not survive until the spring,” Dawson said.
The roads are still open for hiking on the trails because pedestrians don’t disturb wildlife as much as motorized vehicles do.
“You can go further, and make more noise and oftentimes there’s more erosion that’s associated with those vehicles,” Dawson said.
Dawson said you still shouldn’t try to disturb the deer, just let them be.
Tiel-Nelson added that this area is also critically important to mule deer due to destructive wildfires.
“The fires over the years have impacted some of the winter range for these mule deer. So they really do heavily use this area,” Tiel-Nelson said.
BLM plans to re-open the areas to motorized vehicles on March 15th, unless weather conditions extend the closure. The public will be alerted if that happens.
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