Mule Deer meetings...

BuzzH

Long Time Member
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Just a heads up that there will be 2 mule deer meetings taking place this week regarding the sheep mountain mule deer initiative. This includes hunt areas 61, 74, 75, 76, and 77

There is one scheduled for August 5th in Cheyenne at 6 PM at the WGFD office in Cheyenne (in the elk room).

The other is August 6 in Laramie at 6 PM at the University of Wyoming Student Union.

If you hunt these areas and want to have some input on mule deer management in these areas, this is your opportunity.
 
Buzz,
I'm assuming you went the the meeting in Laramie, at least that one if not both.

What can you share about the goings on? Was it well attended?

I don't, or at least haven't hunted those areas but it's sure nice to see people stepping to the plate for mule deer.
Zeke
 
I attended both meetings.

The cliff notes are that the WYGF has been tasked with taking on increased management of a deer herd in each region.

Pretty similar to the Platte River Mule Deer Initiatve, but not quite so involved. It appears, as was predicted, that the process of the PVMDI has taken a long time and that many of those involved are being worn down by the process. There are some great things started with the PVMDI, but its been a challenge keeping people engaged.

The meetings in both Laramie and Cheyenne ran the same. There was a presentation given by the biologists followed by a question/answer period. Then the group (about 20-25 at each meeting) were broken into 2 groups to come up with ideas to help increase the herd.

The biggest take-away "NEWS" was a lot of discussion regarding winter range NOT being the limiting factor for mule deer in many areas. In the past, we've focused just about 100% on winter range, but the science is proving now that the body condition of mule deer entering winter range has a much bigger impact on does/fawn survival. The summer and early fall transition zones are now being looked at as these areas are where mule deer pack on the body fat. Body fat and condition entering the winter are vital and probably make a bigger difference than winter range condition. Of course this varies much between specific herds.

The break out groups came up with the 3 top things that they thought would help the deer herd in these units:

1. Habitat, basically increasing forage potential through various means as well as providing more habitat security.

2. Predators...many think that lions are an issue as well as coyotes in relation to fawning.

3. Hunter Management...in the form of limiting/eliminating doe harvest, antler point restrictions, limiting access, closing roads, etc.

All 4 break-out groups pretty much came up with the same thing, most recognizing habitat as the key.

The data presented by the biologists recognized fawn survival as the problem. Most biologists recognize (generally), that 66 fawns/100 does is what you need surviving to grow a mule deer herd. So, the goal, IMO, should be to implement management that increases the fawn/doe ratio using the 3 above action items.

This, like most management, is much easier said than done for the usual reasons...getting buy in from the Government Organizations as well as the NGO's and the public.
 
LAST EDITED ON Aug-07-14 AT 02:31PM (MST)[p]I agree...but the one thing most arent willing to do is eliminate doe hunting for youth.

Its also odd that archery hunters are still allowed to kill any deer in those units, even though rifle hunters have a 3 point restriction in place.

Doesnt make sense to eliminate antlerless/spike/2-point hunting for rifle hunters and still allow archery hunters to kill anything they want.

I think its well past time the archery regulations match antler point, buck only restrictions, etc. that are placed on rifle hunters.

I thought we were all in this together...apparently thats not the case.

This archery discrepancy was brought up in the Cheyenne meeting...by me. I'll make a lot more noise about it in the season setting meeting, where its more appropriate.

That needs to change...and I'm going to do my best to see that is does.
 
Buzzh, I didn't know that was the case. I agree that doesn't make much sense at all. At this point, I don't even think youth should be killing doe.
 
>Buzzh, I didn't know that was
>the case. I agree that
>doesn't make much sense at
>all. At this point, I
>don't even think youth should
>be killing doe.


I agree with that analysis 100%, but it seems like many parents have the idea that kids have to start killing something at an early age or they won't keep hunting. It sure isn't like when I was brought up to just get out with loved ones to enjoy nature with shooting something being far from the main reason we went out.
 
Thanks Buzz for attending and the info. We are going through a similar process around Casper with the Area 66 Mule Deer Initiative.

As with your observation about archery "any" deer, the same was brought up here and you can expect a push here to limit special archery seasons to the restrictions of regular seasons. I'm with you on this one.

The youth antlerless option won't go away anytime soon. Gov Mead was behind it's inclusion to the regulations and I expect he'll be getting another four years in office. I hate when politics gets in the middle of game management.

Personally, allowing youth to shoot any muley buck would work for me, as long as they get that opportunity to hunt. My kids learned from the age of 12 that any whitetail was a good first deer, but only cull type muley bucks or trophy size muley were shooters. We had plenty of fun, shooting an occasional mule deer and lots of whitetails!
 
Thanks for the info . . . Was there any discussion about limited quota hunting like they have done in the Platte Valley?
 
LAST EDITED ON Aug-08-14 AT 09:37AM (MST)[p]There was LQ talk, by a couple people.

The group I was in at the Cheyenne meeting one guy wanted LQ and gave his reasons why.

I spoke next and opposed the LQ idea for more valid reasons than he could give for them.

The GF employees at the meeting stressed, several times, this was NOT a season setting meeting. So, as a result, unless any proposed season ideas could be tied to the hunt quality or addressing herd building, they tried not to dwell on it.

IMO, the problem with LQ is that you arent addressing how to GROW mule deer herds. All you're effectively doing is managing whats left of mule deer.

I believe that if we can grow the herds, most all the problems we're trying to address via all these management ideas, will go away.

According to the GF data, over-all success rates in this herd and associated units, has always been 25-30%, far below the state average. Lots of reasons why, but basically, the unit isnt easy to hunt. Also, buck to doe ratios are higher now than they were in the past...but keep in mind that there are fewer total deer now.

Currently the population objective for the unit is 15,000 deer and that has never been achieved. IIRC, the highest the population has ever been is right near 9-10K. At the time though, the biologists were using a pop. 2 model to estimate numbers, which they now believe over-estimated the deer population to some degree. The last 3 years they've used a more up-to-date model and the numbers are much lower. It seems the current numbers are pretty much in line with actual population.

I believe the GF is going to try to get their 2 presentations available on-line in the coming months. There is some great historic, as well as current data in those presentations. Like any data though, you have to "tease" out, as well as understand what the data is really telling you.

Another item I should mention is that the USFS wildlife biologist, as well as the BLM biologist, seemed to be really engaged in trying to accomplish some level of habitat work. As per always though, there is process that must happen. There were also several local landowners that were interested in doing all they could to help mule deer numbers.

I also talked with another GF employee about what impacts the extensive beetle-kill in these units may have on summer/fall range. We both agreed that it will be interesting to see what happens with that.

Finally, I made the GF biologists aware of a huge amount of data that I work on collecting. Theres a vast amount of raw data as well as reports, publications, etc. that deal directly with forest health, stand succession, vegetation data, fuels, encroachment, etc. etc. etc. The great thing about this data is that its collected on all federal and state lands as well as private when permission is granted. Even better is that the data is collected every ten years, so trends/changes over time are easy to track.
 
Excellent report and I thank you, Buzz, for you dedication and efforts.
The future is in our hands and it appears that some folks care about where we're headed.
Thanks again,
Zeke
 
Killing does when with the deer numbers we have now just does not make sense. I hate to see youth hunting opportunities eliminated but at some point you have to say enough is enough.
 
I feel like we have reached the point that if we don't eliminate the doe harvest entirely we are effectually eliminating the opportunity for youth to have any kind of a herd to hunt in the future.
Trevor
 

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