POWDER RIVER BASIN—The dead does’ whereabouts hinted at a brutal death.
Clipped or creamed by a vehicle cruising Interstate 90 toward Gillette, her battered remains lay frozen in the bottom of a roadside ditch.
A few hundred yards to the east, another mule deer decomposed slowly. Evidently, both highway casualties were too caked in snow for the Wyoming Department of Transportation cleanup crews to notice.
WYDOT crews know the drill well here, where the four-lane interstate cuts across northeast Wyoming’s high plains. Along one 42-mile stretch of I-90, the state agency recorded 994 road-killed deer over a recent 10-year period. Others — potentially these two frozen does — are never found and logged.
Death is inevitable for the mule deer that cross the interstate here in the Powder River Basin with any frequency.
“What we found was none of the animals figured it out,” said Hall Sawyer, an ecologist who studied three segments of the Powder River and Pumpkin Buttes mule deer herds for the Wyoming Game and Fish Department.
“It’s just too dangerous,” he said. “They tried a few times and they’re dead.”
Had the two does steered clear of I-90 completely, they would have been 2.5 times more likely to survive Sawyer’s study period. But all evidence suggests they still would have faced a rough go at life in modern northeast Wyoming.
Survival rates of the 114 collared adult female mule deer Sawyer studied in the Powder River and Pumpkin Buttes herds were “alarmingly low,” ranging from 66% to 79% annually, below the range-wide average of 85% and up. More than half the animals died, primarily from collisions and disease, over the three-year study.
“I’ve never had a deer collaring study where that many deer died,” Sawyer said. “It’s sad.”
Not enough fawns are being born to hold the line. The Pumpkin Buttes Herd has experienced seven straight years of decline. In November, the Game and Fish Commission approved a 31% reduction in the Pumpkin Buttes population goal, slashing it to 9,000 animals. The Powder River Herd hasn’t fared any better. It’s on a “long, slow downward trend,” according to wildlife managers who reported they’re likely to soon slash the herd’s now-unreachable 45,000-deer objective for the second time in a decade.
Under siege in every direction
There’s no simple explanation or single culprit for why mule deer in these two northeast Wyoming herds have struggled so mightily, according to researchers and game managers. They’ve fared especially badly, even relative to a species tanking generally in the Equality State: Numbers of the bounding, big-eared native deer have fallen by more than half since the turn of the century.
Tim Thomas has worked out of Game and Fish’s Sheridan Region for just as long, and he’s watched as one stressor after another has piled on, collectively inhibiting the landscape’s ability to support mule deer.
“There’s been a lot of factors over the last 25 years to get us where we are today,” said Thomas, the region’s wildlife management coordinator.
Rusty Bell, a taxidermist and former Campbell County commissioner who sits on the Wyoming Game and Fish Commission, doesn’t believe rank-and-file biologists and wardens could have prevented the decline. Odocoileus hemionus is notoriously unadaptable and simply incapable of adjusting to the habitat disruptions and other forces that have descended on the Powder River Basin, he said.
“They’ve been hit by all kinds of different things: 8, 10, 12 different things happening to them,” Bell said from a Gillette steakhouse.
Bell and Thomas verbalized, and Sawyer’s report detailed, many of those factors. They are, in no particular order:
- A prolonged drought struck northeast Wyoming for the first seven years of the century, desiccating rangeland the deer depend on. Withered, sparser shrubs and grasses reduced how many deer the landscape could support, and led to thinner females less likely to successfully rear fawns.
- Around the same time, the basin’s coalbed methane industry boomed, carving up the private-land-dominated landscape with some 30,000 wells, thousands of miles of roads, pipelines, powerlines and other industrial infrastructure.
- The industrialization likely displaced the easily disturbed deer, and killed them in other ways, too. A “significant” number of deer were hit and killed by industry vehicles during the height of the coalbed methane boom, Thomas said, especially because the rigs were headed to and from drilling sites at dawn and dusk.
- Five of the collared deer along I-90 died from a virulent condition called epizootic hemorrhagic disease. Those deer, Sawyer’s report states, likely contracted EHD at coalbed methane discharge reservoirs that concentrate the vectors: biting midges.
- Then there’s chronic wasting disease, an incurable and always-fatal affliction similar to mad cow disease. Deer in the Powder River Basin aren’t being devastated by CWD to the degree some other Wyoming herds are, but 11% of the deer deaths in Sawyer’s study were attributed to CWD (and that’s a minimum, because only 60% of the dead deer were tested).
- Most of the CWD-positive mule deer died in a population extending east from Lake De Smet near Buffalo. It’s suspected that the sickened mule deer in the area — the only migratory population Sawyer detected — got the prion disease from mixing with whitetail deer, which tend to carry CWD at higher rates.
- Whitetail in the region generally are “doing really well”, Thomas said. There’s been scant research looking at interspecies competition between the two native deer species, but they often share habitat, and whitetail are thriving while mule deer spiral downwards.
- Elk in the area have thrived, too. Research in southwest Wyoming’s Little Mountain area found a clear negative relationship between mule deer fat levels — a big barometer of health — and proximity to elk herds.
- There’s less viable habitat available for mule deer to share with the other species, too. Sheridan, Buffalo and Gillette have all sprawled outwards: “There’s numerous subdivisions going back towards the Bighorns,” Thomas said, “and there’s rural development.”
- The health of remaining rangeland is being depleted by the incursion of invasive annual grasses. Cheatgrass, Japanese brome and ventenata are all increasing at the expense of native grasses, Thomas said, and the newcomer exotics don’t offer much nutritional value for mule deer.
Taken together, the pressures have created a world with a fraction the number of deer that there were a decade ago.
Rancher’s eye view
Cattleman Gene Mankin has watched the decline play out in slow motion on his 50,000-acre ranch south of the Pumpkin Buttes. A Powder River tributary, Cottonwood Creek, cuts through the hilly, sagebrush-studded property, and he’s spent 44 years taking drives down the draw to count deer and look for other wildlife.
The current decline, he said, gathered steam during an extreme drought in 2021 and 2022. He counted 128 mule deer in a meadow along the drive on the front end of the drought, but his tally dwindled to 32 by the time it was over.
“They disappeared,” Mankin said. “And we never saw any carcasses.”
The collapse was concerning enough to the Gillette native that he put a stop to commercial hunting on the ranch.
“They kept taking too many — more than I wanted,” he said.
Making the rounds in his pickup in late November, Mankin still saw some mule deer sprinkled here and there — at least a few dozen. He also saw pronghorn, elk and a few far-off whitetail. The latter two species were absent in that country until around 20, 25 years ago, he said.
Another newcomer to Mankin’s 80 sections in southwestern Campbell County was a network of roads — built for free by coalbed methane drillers who have leased the land. Out on the drive, he gestured toward the horizon to the north.
“That’s about two miles. It’d take you 45 minutes to clatter up there in a pickup,” Mankin said. “Now we can be there in 12 minutes.”
Uranium mines also dotted the property.
“We’re fortunate,” Mankin said, “because of the extra income.”
Mankin doubts the drilling and mining contributed to the deer decline. “Like anything,” he said, “they get acclimated to it.”
Steve Adami, who ranches east of Buffalo, is another landowner who’s been struck by the Powder River Basin’s mule deer collapse. The Johnson County man described the change as “almost eerie.”
“In places where you used to see hundreds of deer,” he said, “you might see 10 or 15 now.”
Adami’s 13,000 acres have not been leased to energy producers.
“And we don’t have any deer either,” he said, “so it isn’t just coalbed methane, but they darn sure don’t help.”
It’s tough to say exactly what role industrialization of the Powder River Basin played in making the region less suitable for mule deer. Although dotted by state and federal land ownership, the area is dominated by private property. The Bureau of Land Management did conduct an environmental impact statement to assess CBM’s effects on almost 8 million acres of northeastern Wyoming, but there were no dedicated studies geared toward gauging what widespread drilling would do to deer.
“We have not done any research over here,” Thomas said.
But the habitat choices of collared deer in Sawyer’s study suggest there’s a clear effect, according to a recent Game and Fish memo. Those deer avoided disturbance and development, while occupying more wild landscapes, the GPS data showed.
Declining in the dark
Bell, the Game and Fish Commissioner, believes it’s high time to shift some resources toward better understanding the plight of mule deer in places like the Powder River Basin.
“We have the most-researched herd in the world, over in the Wyoming Range,” he said, “but you don’t have that research in a lot of other places. We’ve done some studies in these areas, but you don’t have that 20-year baseline.”
Game and Fish has ramped up monitoring efforts. The state agency is well into its 15-year-old Wyoming Mule Deer Initiative, intended to improve habitat, adjust hunting seasons and develop science to conserve deer herds throughout the state.
Or at least attempt to conserve them. Mule deer numbers in Wyoming have continued to decline, according to Doug Brimeyer, deputy chief of the Game and Fish’s wildlife division.
The statewide population estimate penciled out to 242,500 mule deer after the 2022 hunting season, 49% below the goal of 473,600 animals. Post-hunt 2023 figures aren’t yet available, but they’re likely to be lower yet again following the worst winter in generations, especially for western Wyoming deer.
And population objectives keep shrinking across the state.
Brimeyer presented the Game and Fish Commission with the proposal to slash the Pumpkin Buttes Herd’s target size in November.
Going into the adjustment, the herd numbered an estimated 4,700 animals, just 36% of the 13,000-deer goal. Even after moving to a 9,000-deer target, that still left Game and Fish with only 52% of the desired number of deer.
The neighboring Upper Powder River mule deer herd (different from the Powder River Herd in Sawyer’s study) experienced an even more dramatic change. There, biologists were tallying just 26% of the 18,000-animal goal. The commission slashed the objective in half, so now the herd’s roughly half the targeted size.
Not a single outfitter nor any member of the public formally weighed in. The Wyoming Game and Fish Commission received no written comments, and only Brimeyer stood at the mic during the November meeting.
“Given the status of mule deer in Wyoming and the changes we’re seeing in places like Powder River, it’s kind of surprising that people didn’t provide a little bit more opinion,” Brimeyer told WyoFile.
The state agency has already taken the biggest step in its power to help both herds, ending all doe and fawn hunting. The only mule deer that can be hunted — bucks — do not have any bearing on the trajectory of the populations.
Bell, who did speak up during the commission meeting, worries that the hunting community and Wyoming residents generally don’t grasp the significance of the long-term declines in mule deer.
“Because you still see a lot around town,” Bell told WyoFile. “You still see deer.”
Residents’ baseline expectations for what’s a normal number of deer have shifted. Adami, the Buffalo-area rancher, recalled how many more mule deer he once saw when he traveled I-90 to Gillette as a high schooler.
“You’d hit the brakes 10 times with near misses for deer on the interstate,” he said.
Fast forward half a century and those that remain are still getting struck — at a rate of roughly 100 a year, according to WYDOT data cited in Sawyer’s research.
Muley Fanatic Foundation co-founder and southwest Wyoming resident Josh Coursey has reviewed Sawyer’s study. He wasn’t surprised.
“Mule deer are taking it on the chin from multiple factors everywhere you turn,” he said.
Coursey and other mule deer advocates “want to draw a line in the sand,” he said.
“We can’t do this anymore, we’ve got to do something,” Coursey said. “If we continue to let this go on and persist, we know these effects and impacts to deer are getting to the point where they might be irrecoverable.”
Mule deer populations have been lost before, according to Jim Heffelfinger, an Arizona ecologist who chairs the Western Association of Fish and Wildlife Agencies’ Mule Deer Working Group. Closely related black-tailed deer have been extirpated from the Central Valley in California, he said.
Mule deer throughout the West had a rough go in the 1990s, Heffelfinger said, but rangewide the species is now pretty stable. There are exceptions: States and regions where habitat mule deer depend on are slowly declining and under siege from one factor or another.
“There’s no doubt that a lot of our grassland and a lot of shrublands were way more productive [for mule deer] in the 1950s than they are now,” Heffelfinger said. “It’s something that’s hard to point to and say, ‘Look at that problem,’ because it’s just such a slow, long-term change. But it’s real and it’s pretty widespread.”
In the Powder River Basin, the effects of those long-term changes are on full display.
I’m looking for info on how “yarding up” near haystacks affects survival of deer. I hear that a steady diet on grass hay can cause significant losses during rough winters.
Here in western Colorado the mule deer population has declined precipitously. We’ve had some weather issues but I think it’s mostly loss of winter habitat due to resort development that has caused a huge buildup of housing or condos in traditional winter range.
I would like to be included in these communications on WY Mule Deer
Hard to believe that WY’s efforts over the past twenty years have been ineffective at conserving the population throughout the entire state. If true, there’s a systematic error in their approach. Did I miss the percentage of mortality caused by vehicle collisions? Why doesn’t the state use oil, gas, and coal revenue to construct wildlife overpasses and underpasses? There’s also federal grants for this kind of work. They should already be standard on suitable locations on federal and state lands. Require treatment of coalbed methane brine pits to kill the midge larvae- not complicated. 3,2,1 go.
Please help the mule deer I might like to get a chance to hunt them sometime in my life time and visit your state in the say time
Whatever game and fish and anyone else is doing for the mule deer ain’t working anywhere in the state
Greedy ranchers.. you already have 50,0000 acres… now you want drilling leases too. Greedy, self centered ranchers. Turn their ranches into BLM… public… no drilling,, no old outdated ranchers destroying everything for their own profit. Shame on you…
Let’s face it, overgrazing is a huge factor in the decline of Mule Deer and for some reason, Game and Fish are afraid to talk about it (can’t upset “their” large private landowners with the cheap public land grazing rights). While NW Wyoming didn’t suffer the great die off like SE Wyoming did, our public lands are in pretty rough shape due to the endless over grazing. Much of the BLM isn’t too good but to see total destruction, check out the Bureau of Rec lands adjacent to the Heart Mountain Canal. Many, many complaints have been filed with the BLM and BOR but the range inspectors turn a blind eye. Pretty sad to see the decline of not only Mule Deer but Antelope and the on the brink of endangerment Sage Grouse. EDIT: guess who “manages” the grazing on the Heart Mountain BOR lands – the Heart Mountain Irrigation District itself. Complain about the abuse to the BOR headquarters in Mills WY and they’ll refer you to the Canal managers. Fox guarding the henhouse…
Another great article Mike. Very very sad about the mule deer. I hope Wyoming gets more information to determine what can be done to increase or at least maintain their population. They have been around a long time and it breaks my heart to think they may be no more.
Time, indeed, to draw a line in the sand. Muleys, Elk, Pronghorns are the rightful owners of BLM managed lands.
Habitat destruction (oil & gas activities) & probably more problematic is the fact that there is nothing left in this state for the game herds to eat. Remember when 500 Elk died in the Red Desert because the only food left for them was lichen (supposedly). I walked the hills and ridges around Rock Springs and the Red Desert for almost 40 years, and walking there after a sheep outfit has gone through the area: there is no food for the Muleys, Elk or pronghorns left. The sheep eat every last bit of green shoots, then move on and when they return 3-6 months later there is still nothing for Game herds to eat, because, after all this is desert. Time to cull the sheep herds destroying the browse our magnificent wild game needs to thrive. Deny the Rock Springs Grazing Assoc., and all others of its ilk, their unbridled assault on the rangeland in SW, NW, middle and borders of Wyoming.
Build wildlife crossing overpasses like we have in Nevada. They will provide some help. What about lowering tag quotas?? Fish and game would lose income. It’s all about the money anymore.
I’m a third generation Nevadan and I have watched our mule deer herds decline for the past 25 plus years. But the brainiacs in department of wildlife continue to issue way to many tags and even have doe hunts and emergency depredation hunts!!! I have sat on the Humboldt County Advisory Board to manage wildlife for over 20 years. Our board members want fewer tags issued but it’s all about the dollar. I am also the vice president of the Nevada Outfitters and Guides Association. I spend alot of time in the field. Areas that once held alot of deer and numerous great bucks are completely void of deer. It’s sad and sickening.
I encourage everyone to attend County and State meetings, write letters and emails. If we don’t do something immediately we WILL be the generation that loses the mule deer!! So please choose to be a part of the solution and not a part of the problem. If you just sit around and complain but don’t take any positive action you are a part of the problem. Lower tag quotas and no doe hunts are something that we can completely control.
As far as I can see from articles that I have read , like this one , the wildlife in Wyoming , and every rocky mountain state for that matter , don’t stand a chance in surviving all the factors they have to contend with in order to survive . Too much drilling , loss of habitat , greedy landowners and oil companies that could care less , highway mortality , hard winters , grizzly bears and wolves to name a few will eventually wipe out the wildlife that we hunters protected and loved throughout the last several decades . If the mule deer are in such bad shape in numbers and population I’ve decided to throw in the towel and stop hunting . I pray that someday they will thrive again but they have too much working against them in the future. Just too much gloom and doom as far as survival.
The one thing left out of this is the impact of wolf reintroduction on the dear. I have hunted the southern end of Oregons blue mountains for over 55 years and until 5years ago never saw wolves. In the last 5 years wolves have taken over. In the last 3 years the mule deer population has been decimated by wolf predation. This year we were in camp for three weeks . One before the season started and then the whole season
In aii we saw the same group of seven wolf’s 4 times . In the three weeks we were there we counted 27 wolf kills
Most of them left uneaten
Wolves kill fo fun and those who ignor this are responsible for what is happening.
What? Predators kill deer? That can’t possibly be. Mike didn’t mention that in the article.
There are no wolves in that part of Wyoming.
True, but politically incorrect. Wolf predation cannot be a problem, just because they kill everything they possibly can, They are saving the planet. Once millions are spent eliminating coyotes, millions more will have to be spent restoring them.
As you know, Wyoming is not the only state experiencing the referenced decline in mule deer numbers. Eastern Montana, which has endured its share of drought and wildfire the past few years, is seeing the same reduction in mule deer populations. As a unique hybrid species (according to Dr. Valerius Geist) mulies have always been susceptile to change – including expansion of whitetail ranges. I have hunted and photographed Montana on a regular basis since the mid-1980s and have witnessed drops and eventual spikes in mule deer numbers several times over the years, but nothing like the current situation. Unfortunately, management efforts by state fish and game agencies may not be the solution to this concern. Everything in life changes and, regretfully, nature is no exception. My hopes are that this handsome creature, my favorite animal to photograph and hunt, can overcome the combination of factors that have greatly affected its numbers recently!
I think Josh Coursey puts it well. Mule deer are declining everywhere. We need to take this seriously, especially when it comes to future plans and how we can do better for these animals. We have 6hat opportunity in SW Wyoming with the BLM RMP. We need to put emphasis on wildlife everywhere if we want to maintain Wyoming’s way of life and the reason many of us live here.
I am not a WY native. I moved here 10 years ago. I am 66 now and have hunted since age 15. I want a voice but several things I observe appear taboo to speak of. Ranching, cattle, logging and farming or lack thereof. First: There seems no rules on numbers of ranches having cattle, cutting hay or using water. Driving throughout WY, we observe many signed rivers with no water. There seems to be a plethora of irrigated green fields and every type of fenced cattle everywhere. Miles of logging roads appear everywhere and allow further breach into areas previously only accessible by horse or foot. Ranches continue to flourish. Access onto public land becomes increasingly difficult to impossible. To my knowledge Game and fish only farms a minuscule portion of state lands and then only hay for elk refuge. Unharvested crops could be planted allowing use by every species both game and non game. Speaking of your article and vehicular impacts, I would venture the under 1000 recorded over 10 years is woefully low. The state provides fencing along private property and state roads to protect cattle, but too low to protect any wildlife. Why cattle on state and Federal land along with expanding herds on private land is never mentioned befuddles me. All I seem to hear is the whitetail is the problem hence liberal harvests are encouraged.
Randy — i so appreciate you saying this about ranching and totally agree.
Having some experience ,not alot but some guiding hunters in Wyoming, New Mexico and Arizona there is different political powers that call the shots. The old school thoughts to accessibility varies little if having to cross private lands to access BLM , Wilderness, and State lands as ranchers have to deal with a newer mentality with hunters,fishermen, and Millennials tearing up the landscape trying to escape whatever they cant control in this frustrated world. In Arizona just about every rual town you can rent the all terrains of toys with gps to rip the lands to shreds that a good rancher or farmer wouldent allow nor would the B L M or Forest Service. Now theres revenues to be had so again follow the money thru politics. The masses are as desperate as the border crossers seeking to escape. As a permitted operator its impossable to get the understaning needed when dealing with most government agencies
that have been educated anti conservation.Old school proven managements work and governments still havent figured out why a warm water species wasn’t designed to survive in a cold water climate so how can anyone win. I know he was a radical environmental guru with his disdained for dams but he said let the people who live and work the land manage it and if a bad appel move him out . At least there is a good side to hunting ethics fishing ethics, getting permissons and bad appels are asked to leave by laws but its a free for all with out there for off roaders .
Yet private land hunting is so much better than public land hunting in spite of that!
Good information and article, not much mention about the affects hunting and how that plays into the problem. Is the wgf department issuing to many licenses? Is the harvest percentage a factor in maintaining mule numbers? Also what about railway traffic through the Power River, the mortality from train collisions. There is alot from the railway traffic. That also needs to b part of the study.
Wyo Game and Fish used to have THINK HABITAT bumper stickers but in the last 30 years a lot of habitat was carved up and disappeared with expanding oil and gas development and urbanization. The state bows to oil and gas development as it eats up the landscape and not enough is being done by the state to conserve habitat.
One more excellent article by Mike Koshmrl!
Note: Most of the causes of the decline are due to HUMANS. The killing by vehicles can be alleviated–check out the book by Ben Goldfarb, Crossings, which provides great detail on successful attempts to decrease “roadkill.”
But, some will continue to blame anything other than humans–e.g., wolves!
There is more wildlife killed on highways then anybody realizes a start would be wildlife crossings with fences to protect them . Wyoming’s wildlife is a resource that needs protected .
Great article, Mike. I managed the Powder River and Pumpkin Buttes mule deer herds back in the late 1970s and early 1980s. Viewed in the rear view mirror, it was an incredible education. Both herds inhabit predominantly private land, and most landowners are terrific stewards. Predators aren’t much of an issue, for the same reason. There are some things we can’t control, like drought and probably CWD. But there are things we can control, too. We can lower roadkill mortality with highway crossings. But the biggest thing we can do is learn from our mistakes. Coalbed methane development was a mistake on a grand scale. It made a few people rich, but these deer won’t recover from its impacts in my lifetime, or in my children’s lifetime. Wyoming continues to believe that we can give away the habitat mule deer depend on and suffer no long term consequences. That’s just not true. Matt’s right – mule deer are the canary in the coal mine.
Good comments and hello to Walt Gasson.
Walt — such good information based on your experience. Thank you.
I just have two questions, why aren’t the game and fish taking an even more drastic approach and closing seasons ? I believe the only way the mule deer will rebound is to stop taking numbers. I personally would much rather not hunt for 3-4 years then see the deer gone. I’m also going to ask the outfitters and ranchers what they are doing to manage the populations, they control the majority of the mule deer hunting ground in the state of Wyoming.
I live in powder river county montana i’ve owned a taxidermis shop and Have guided here for 22 years. I’m grown up in Eastern Montand I’ve never seen the deer numbers this low in my life, not even 78 and 79 when we had the bad winners, it’s a perfect starm 2000 ten, we had a huge die off from The winter and Spring and Eagle smoothed in by the hundreds. Throughout the county they ate all of our rabbit’s Our sage hindsquirrels and every other small animal. Then they started working on Deer and antelope The white tail have helped push him out, but they’re gone now too. The elk are pushing them out the coyotes. I know one guy that trapped almost 200 of them in 1 season. Bob gang bobcats. We have black bears now a few wolves. And lots of mountain lions. Then our state gave 11000 mule. Deer doe tags for region swhen a few years before. You couldn’t even shoot a Mule deer doe Cars wipe them out. I do boat inspections for Montana State fishing game. And we watch him get hit constantly as far as the cold bed methane. If you go to cold strip Montana, they have the biggest deer and elk and Is antelope in our state living on mine property. And I’ve not seen a deer dying from c. W. D. I’ve watched Wyoming’s herd. Be cut in half every single year for at least the last 5 to 7 years. We’ve never recovered from the die off when we had 14 to 16 foot snowdrifts here. 9 10 11 e, h, d, it’s here all the time. They say it’s only During dry years there’s oh, it’s an insect. We have insects all the time. We notice it during dry times because our water is scarce and hard to find that. When they get it, they go to water. And we find More of them.
I find Dead deer and Antelope
Every you’re from EH1 guy. If he did not have a general butt tag could shoot 7 Mule deer does in this region.Residents paid $10 non residents paid $75. Well, that’s a pretty good chunk of change. And we had hunters come in. We sell hunting and fishing licenses here as well. That would buy all of them so group of 5 guys. Could you 5 bucks? And thirty flipping mule deer The drought in twenty Was devastatingour rut did not start the until the day after thanksgiving, and i’m not I shot a mule there November 11th. And he had 4 other bucks with him. He left a dozen doors in the hay field and his neck was about 16 inches around, and they should have been trying to kill each other that time of Year The place we hunt in Wyoming. Used to have 300 plus white tail and a 100 or more mule. Deer plus about 75 analo on average in about a 3 mile. Stretch up the little powder river last year. The best night I saw 15 white tail. And 4 mule there. I saw a few more this year and I’ve seen more fans this year than I’ve seen in the last 3 put together.
But the numbers are way down obviously. But I did get the first 200 inch mule deer from our country in the 22 years I. ‘Ve been here and I believe. The numbers are down so low those big old Mule deer bucks have to travel to find dos and they’re coming out of there Hiding spots, and that’s why we got in either really big. Dear or you’re and a 1/2 old dear. There’s 2 years or 3 that we have no representatives.
When we first moved here and 01 you could drive. The big powder river and without even looking. You would see 2000 deer on that remember. Now you have to look and if you see 40.
You’ve had a good evening. I’ve hunted this place since the 70s, and it is. Heartbreaking to see it like this. Like I said before anything that could devastate your deer Heard has happened We had a meeting with the montana F w p about chronic wastings They wanted us to do testing and I asked him what Is is your policy going to be eradication like wisconsin Now wisconsin has chronic wasting’s disease and no dear I think They gave the eleven thousand deer tags to s islandly Is eradicate the deer heard And Save face Plus they got the money from the license sales. And they’ve cut the deer numbers down to nothing. But I don’t think that’s totally yet. Eitbecause I have in-laws that linext to region 5 in Montana. And they don’t have any dear eithor no, so I don’t know. What’s going on but it’s bad
Jeff, yes there are Wolves in Wyoming. However, rarely if ever in this part of the state. Any that showed up would not survive long. I believe in this part of the state wolves can be shot year-round without a license. I’m sure coyotes and mountain lions kill some number of deer. However I doubt predation is a significant factor in the overall decline. I’m open to being incorrect if someone had the data. Hall Sawyer is a well respected and experienced researcher who did much of the pioneering work in Western Wyoming. I am glad to see he is part of this project.
In order to have good fawn recruitment we need FAT DOES. Drought, diseases, degraded/changing habitat, bad winters, competition from elk/whitetails, development, and roadkill are all likely compounding factors. Unfortunately none of these factors are cheap, easy, fast, or convenient to remedy. I worry Mule Deer are another canary in the coal mine.
I spend much of my week on the road traveling and the amount of wildlife killed on roads is astounding. I wonder if insurance claim data would show an increase in roadkill correlated to the marked increase in distracted people looking at their smartphones. Just a curious observation in general.
In closing, the MEATEATER podcast episode 162 has two UW researchers talking about mule deer in Western Wyoming. While this is a different part of the state, there are some interesting lessons learned about mule deer that can carry over. Very informative.
Another great article Mike. The only suggestion I have is to add predators to the list of factors affecting mule deer populations. In the area covered by the article that would be bobcats, mountain lions and coyotes. Normally they probably don’t have a significant effect on mule deer populations, but since the sylvatic plague has infected Wyoming, it has become a bigger issue. The reason – sylvatic plague kills all of the rodents/prey base during an epidemic resulting in the predators becoming desperate for food. They naturally switch to any available source of food and lambs, turkeys, fawns, fully grown pronghorns and fully grown deer become their only source of food. This is a cyclic phenomena which causes large fluctuations in wildlife populations especially prairie dogs and rabbits. Sylvatic plague is an introduced disease and its effect is only exacerbated by another new disease – CWD. Its interesting to note that mule deer populations have declined since these new diseases have taken hold in Wyoming.
Thank you Mike for this well researched article.
I don’t mean in any way to over simplify this complex issue but it is HABITAT
and no road blocks to be able to utilize that habitat.
This is a well written article and really needs to bring awareness to the future of the mule deer herds in Wyoming. It seems that drought has been a big factor not just for mule deer but also for our fisheries. it seems like interstate 90 is taking 100 deer a year and a 42 mile stretch seems like a lot. As more and more humans end up everywhere I am sure the traffic will increase annually on that interstate. I know one sections of I 80 they have a very high fence and areas that wildlife can go underneath the interstate where is our politicians and our governor surely there’s a few bucks for projects along interstate 90. And simple loss of habitat through housing coal from oil and gas yeah that’s the new Wyoming nothing like the old Wyoming that seems to be The will of our government to diversify Wyoming and get a higher population of humans for whatever reason. I like the old Wyoming that didn’t want all the growth and those days are gone.
Yes, those days are gone. I use to spend vacation time on a working Cattle ranch south of Jackson, The state was beautiful then, I thought, not so much any more. Oil, coal another environmental problems and turning g Jackson into a millionaire playground killed it for me. It’s to bad because the state was really beautiful,
I have been told that a lot of mule deer does will not except immature bucks so when most of the larger mature bucks are taken there are left a lot of open does.
I agree habitat is probably the biggest factor. The BLM needs to do a better job over seeing the grazing on our public land. You can go on almost any piece of land and the ranchers have grazed it down to the dirt. Maybe we should take that public land out of use for grazing so the deer have something to eat.
Nonrenewable fossil fuels are the bane of our world. I worked in Gillette, 1974 and I saw what was going on back then. All in the name of the almighty, dollar and energy exploitation.
Pat. Where exactly would you be with out those “non renewable fossil fuels”? Tell us how you would live entirely off the grid with out funding fossil fuels you blame. Let’s see here with out fossil fuels. Be no wind turbines/solar panels/ gore Tex materials for cold weather gear/ Wyoming is largely treeless in most areas. How would you heat your house. Cook your food? You would have zero transportation besides horse back or walking. No insulation for your house. No metal pots/pans. No cell phone or computers. Paper would be very scarce or expensive. No fertilizer besides manure. So food growing would be difficult. Majority of medicines? Not with out fossil fuels. Clothes you wear? Not with out fossil fuels. Women’s basic sanitary supplies? Not with out fossil fuels. So tell us the story of life Pat without the curse of your fossil fuels. Let’s hear the story.
Any wolves in Wyoming? If so how do they play into this?
There are no wolves in that part of Wyoming, or grizzlies. The populations of black bears and mountain lions is not very high in that area either. Coyotes would be the main predator in Eastern Wyoming and they have a minimal impact on deer populations.
Did you read Lee Campbell’s post about Sylvatic plague? Coyote predation could be worse than you are thinking. If smaller prey isn’t available, coyotes will look elsewhere. They’re not dumb. It sounds to me like this herd of deer could become victims of a “predator pit”. I don’t know what the coyote population is in the area, but when a deer herd is trying to recover from already low numbers, and smaller predator prey is gone, coyotes can have a bad effect on herd recovery by eating the few tasty fawns that remain. Not to mention bobcats and other small-prey eating carnivores. I sincerely hope this herd doesn’t fall into the “predator pit”.
So is WYDOT going to design/build wildlife crossings over/under I 90 to reduce mule deer mortality and vehicle accidents?