Mule Deer need hunters' help

[1_pointer]

I like that. When Harley gets elected President, you are my nominee for Secretary of Interior.

I would only accept if you could convince NHY to move my office out of DC and to someplace where I could keep an eye on mule deer work!

Just to be forewarned, I'm afraid confirmation could be tough. Lots of skeletons in the closet. Likewise, it'll be hard to get Dinkshooter and Oak's vote due to my affinity for and appreciation of sheep as a very good management tool...

 

[Oak]

Wait...what? No Harley for President? And to think that for all these years I've been wasting my vote on Monty Brewster.

Boy, that's how it feels sometimes.

 

[JM77]

One of the many reasons we hear for mule deer decline is interactions with other species(elk or whitetail for instance).

In central Wyo the elk population is booming, with no amount of hunting to date that can control them. In areas here, where there is NO hunting pressure on mule deer, or pressence of elk, the mule deer herd has tanked badly.

Apparrently, whether it be drought, climate change(which occurs everyday here), habitat, disease, predators or whatever, it seems to affect elk in a positive way and mule deer quite the opposite. We can argue about the reasons, but in the end it's the species that has to survive the big picture.

 

[1_pointer]

One of the many reasons we hear for mule deer decline is interactions with other species(elk or whitetail for instance).

In central Wyo the elk population is booming, with no amount of hunting to date that can control them. In areas here, where there is NO hunting pressure on mule deer, or pressence of elk, the mule deer herd has tanked badly.

Apparrently, whether it be drought, climate change(which occurs everyday here), habitat, disease, predators or whatever, it seems to affect elk in a positive way and mule deer quite the opposite. We can argue about the reasons, but in the end it's the species that has to survive the big picture.

Just a quick note about 'habitat' that may be an attributing factor with the issue you raise. Range conditions, at least on public land, for the most part are much better than they were during the mule deer boon years. The result is more grass and less browse generally speaking. This is more beneficial to elk than to mule deer. FWIW...

 

[noharleyyet]

And to think that for all these years I've been wasting my vote on Monty Brewster.

Monty Brewster: What are you gonna vote?
Crowd: [in unison] None of the above!

 

[JM77]

Just a quick note about 'habitat' that may be an attributing factor with the issue you raise. Range conditions, at least on public land, for the most part are much better than they were during the mule deer boon years. The result is more grass and less browse generally speaking. This is more beneficial to elk than to mule deer. FWIW...

So, generally speaking 1-pointer, is this the reason there is a mule deer crisis and not a problem with elk? Half or more of the land here is private, and the larger ranches that limit hunting are experiencing the same deer problems. I don't have the same opinion about rangelands in this country as you say anyway. Most of our public is state and ranchers are not kept to the same standards there on grazing as they are on BLM.

I spent half a day recently with a local G&F biologist in deer country near by Casper. His observations were that the deer habitat was in excellent shape, both new & old growth.

 

[1_pointer]

I'm not saying it is THE reason, but one would have to show me some pretty strong evidence that it's not an important contributing factor to the decline of mule deer. In many ways, what looks like good 'habitat' (I put that in quotes because it is very species/location specific) often is not. Similarly, many currently in the wildlife/natural resources profession, myself included, have a hard time truly grasping what the conditions were in some of these places during the big mule deer years. What we consider to be in pretty rough condition today was often okay to good back in the day. I was fortunate to get to work with a guy who's family had lived in a pretty remote valley darn near since the day it was settled. Looking through some old photos ('40s-60's) he showed me of the area it looked pretty beat up, largely due to grazing which was mostly sheep back then. The area in question summered about 5000 head of sheep. Him and the DWR historical estimates both agree there were around the same number of mule deer in that area year round. In the winter that number would more than double! Currently, there's cattle grazing on much of that some mountain, but a large portion of the range had the permit retired and it now only occasionally grazed. The vegetation looks so much better. More, bigger, healthier browse and from what I could tell more and taller grasses. I've stood, with picture in hand, nearly in the same spot the picture was taken from and saw it. A much 'better' looking landscape. That said, there's probably less than 1000 head of deer that winter there and the year round herd is probably just a few hundred. Like I said above, I'm not saying that the whole reason is due to the vegetation change as there have been quite a few other changes, but I do believe it is a large contributor. Another note, elk were not in this part of Utah until the past 20 years or so at best. There's still not a lot of them, but it's really not all that uncommon to see them now.

 

[WyOpitz]

You guys are all wrong... The count is off due to a majority of mule deer are now all on private land! Lol
Blame them damn rancher folks for hogging all the deer. Haha

 

[have gun will travel]

I think they went south and crossed the boarder. I heard it's not secure...We are going to renew our passports to hunt muleys. No kidding aside does anyone know how healthy the heard is in Mexico? I watched a show and they were taking monsters south of the boarder. And if there heard is healthy, then why?