My daughters had a track meet in Gunnison today. On the drive over and back, myself and my whole family were blown away by all the deer carcasses littering the roadsides and up onto the hillsides. The bleached out hair of the dead deer showed up like blond spots of death in the short sagebrush of the south facing hillsides. Regardless of the obvious, its really distressing to see evidence of so many animals dying a slow and lingering death. Its truly sad. A friend who was at the track meet and lives in Gunnison said there were close to 500 deer using the feeding station he was working and at the end of the winter, they only counted about 160 deer left. I don't know if that is a common anecdote but its certainly disconcerting.
Up where I live on the edge of middle park, I saw a few yearlings give it up and die during the last couple weeks. Even though the snow has been melting, we have had a few spring storms and nights in the single digits on occasion. One yearling in particular I saw bedded under an old douglas fir on a burned off hillside. When I drove by the next day, the little yearling had just put its head down and died.
Up where I live on the edge of middle park, I saw a few yearlings give it up and die during the last couple weeks. Even though the snow has been melting, we have had a few spring storms and nights in the single digits on occasion. One yearling in particular I saw bedded under an old douglas fir on a burned off hillside. When I drove by the next day, the little yearling had just put its head down and died.