Here’s my grand mule deer plan (I-phone version)
Mule deer are in decline across the west. Mature buck ratios are declining due to habitat loss, more effective hunters, and vulnerability to hunter harvest during the rut. A healthy and balanced herd has mature bucks and socially hunters desire mature bucks in the herd composition.
Colorado resident and non resident hunters have expressed frustration in the decline in age structure of bucks in the herd composition. Wildlife managers have been managing to lower buck to doe ratios and overall populations due to range limitations.
To balance hunter desires for robust populations and manager desires to reduce buck to doe ratios while maintaining populations, season structures must change.
The shift to later season dates has undoubtedly made mature bucks more vulnerable due to rutting behavior and weather conditions. Most western states do not allow rifle hunting of public land mule deer in mid to late November.
To maximize opportunity and hunter satisfaction the following is proposed:
1. Return to pre 2020 5 year season structure dates.
2. Add deer hunting to first rifle season.
3. Increase early season rifle hunting opportunity in first and second seasons to increase harvest of bucks, reducing buck to doe ratios. Add tags to increase opportunity.
4. Maintain low to moderate buck tag allocations in third seasons, and reduce season length to 5 days.
5. Eliminate fourth season deer hunting unless cwd prevalence in the GMU and DAU exceeds 4% on a 3 year rolling average AND previous year shows greater than 4% prevalence AND herd structure exceeds targets for population, buck to doe ratio, fawns recruitment, fawn survival, and mature buck ratio. This will allow for mule deer to have a “quiet period” to breed post hunting season as elk do in Colorado and ensure healthy herd compositions with management tools available in the case of high CWD prevalence.