AZMIGHTYMULIES
Active Member
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TED RIGGS Yes, I've seen Desert Tortoise eat cow pies. I've never seen them eat dry cow pies, but I've seen them eat a lot of fresh ones. They eat them for the moisture and their food value too.
Being a trapper, it was always my practice to stop every quarter mile or so and walk up a draw or wash to check for tracks and sign, so I had occasion to see those kinds of things.
Desert tortoise not only eat cow pies on dry years but they eat cow pies on good years too. The'two best feed years I remember were 1949 and 1958. Of the tWO;-~~9 was the best. That year the grass and Filigree were clear up above your knees everywhere, on the ridges and in the draws.
Indian Wheat was the most abundant plant .found on the ridges, but, in the draws and washes it was Filigree. I remember stopping my pickup in a draw where the feed was so thick I couldn't get the pickup going again without first backing up to get a run at it.
The feed was just like an alfalfa fi-eld. Except for the trails they made, you couldn't even tell where the sheep had been. I had one herder told me that he hadn't had to take his sheep to water for three weeks (there being sufficient moisture in the vegetation to meet the needs of the animalsi.
When I first went to work as a trapper there on the Arizona Strip in 1945, there were 32 different outfits that wintered their sheep on the strip. I covered all the country from Lake Powell to Lake Mead, and from Kanab, Utah to the Southern tip of the Kaibab, a country 150 miles long and 85 miles wide.
It's a rough and isolated country There were periods when I'd never see another person for six or eight days at a time. Altogether I worked there for just two mouths less then 32 years. I really enjoyed it, I liked the country and I liked the people. . I was always welcome wherever I went. I could pull into any ranch or cow camp anytime and stay as long as necessary.
I
I'd trap the high country, the Kaibab, Mt. Trumbull, and the Virgin Maintains in the summer, then work my way down so r would have the low country to trap during the winter. We never put poison out in the same areas every year. We only used poison when the coyotes got ahead of our trapping.
It's unfair the way the government is putting people off the range these days. They say that the cattle and sheep have overgrazed and hurt the feed in this country, but if that were true, then why is it that the feed does so well on wet years?
It's a serious thing when government policy destroys people's livelihoods, particularly when such policy may not be backed by solid evidence. Just because it's the government that is making the decisions, doesn't mean that it's right, or that things will improve. In fact, in most instances government decisions make things worse. Take predator control as an example. Since ,the government began to discourage trapping and began systematically cutting back on predator control, we have lost nearly all of our deer, and we're losing our Mountain Sheep too.
with very few people.
Up here on the Virgin Mountain, where I used to see twelve or fourteen Mounta i n Sheep in a bunch, now you can hardly find a track. The last year I trapped, (the winter of 1988 and 89), the lions were so thick and so hungry they were eating nearly everything I caught. They even ate two of their own kind right out of my traps.
Nature is not "all' wonderful" like so many would like to believe. Nature is cruel. In the wild, if animals are not taken by hunters or trappers they either die of starvation or are killed by predators. In either case suffering is nearly always extreme.
On TV they often show lions or' wolves attacking prey animals, but they never show the whole-k: 1 1. I f they would show how long it actually takes for the animal to die while it's hind quarters and guts are being eaten: and how the animal suffers as it's eaten alive then possibly people wouldundec~tandbetter how cruel Nature really is.
Old deer, when their teeth get bad will get to be a rack of bones before they die. They often go through months of misery. I used to shoot them and put them out of their misery when I found them starving that way.
When I went to get my bobcats tagged in Kingman, (Arizona) in the spring of 1989, I told Clark Fuller, one of the wardens there, about my experience with the lions and how they'd gotten nearly all the deer and were now working on the mountain sheep.
That's when he told me that they were aware of the problem, that they had made three sheep plants there on the Virgin Mountains, some by helicopter. He went on to say, they had put radio collars on fourteen of the sheep, and that since the plant, all fourteen had been killed by lions.
So, the people that are responsible for our game and so forth know what's going on, but they're not speaking out. For some reason that I don't understand, decisions are being made for political purposes, and not for the benefit of wildlife or for the good of the country.
state of Nevada
SECOND ARTICLE
JUly 12.1993 ~---------------~ RIGGS
Ted Riggs, is one of the best known Mule Deer hunters in the West. During a lifetime spent in the Country known as the Arizona Strip, Ted has killed 40 bucks with antler spreads exceeding 30
inches, ten of which measured over 36 inches, and fifteen in the 34 to 36 inch range. His widest buck had a spread of 43 1/2 inches, and scored 249 6/8 Boone and Crockett points.
Ted is best known for the many Mule Deer he has taken, but to those that know him best, his real prowess is as a trapper and tracker. "I've been trapping for 65 years now. When I was 8, I can remember my father would set the traps for me and I would go bury them. By trapping, I was able to put myself through High School during the Great Depression."
Ted was born in 1916 in Kanab, Utah. After being discharged from duty with the U.S. Engineers in 1945 he went to work for U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. "At that time Ranchers were losing 45% of their calves and lambs to predators. We shot coyotes, used coyotes getters, poison (strychnine and arsenic and later 1080)." Four years after we began the ranchers' calf crop jumped to 90%. "1080" was the most effective, we would inject it into the meat of mustangs or burros and scatter it across the desert once a year.
Ted spent 28 years as a guide, mostly hunting Mule Deer. "I'd take three weeks annual leave each fall. Got to know nearly all the Country between Lake Powell and Lake Mead."
"Studied deer and the outdoors all my life. All of the big deer I have killed were a product of predator control. I worked five years on the Arizona Strip before I ever saw a deer."
"Whenever we would slack off in controlling coyotes and lions, deer would get down to nothing. But, as soon as control was started we would have large numbers within five years." "You would see the effects elsewhere too. There were lots of turtles in the 40's and even into the early 70's."
"Predators are just too thick now, a year ago last winter (winter of 1988 and 89) I had my coyote sets set off 20 times by
Mountain Lions. I had to release seven of the big cats." "The lions were so hungry they were eating nearly all the coyotes and fox I was catching. All they would leave was the face, the feet and the tail. The rest of the carcass would be gone, even bones and hide." "There's few animals left out there any more but the lions and coyotes, no Mountain Sheep and hardly any deer." I look for an outbreak of rabies before long, particularly in California .
THIRD ARTICLE
To my knowledge, Dr. Bruce Wilkin of Ely, Nevada was-the first person to attempt calling attention to game predation problems in our state.
Frustrated at our Wi ld life Department's reluctance to even talk of predation, Dr. Wilkin compiled the following information back in 1981.
1\ SECOND OPINION ON f1t.NAGEHENT OF OUR HILDLIFE
Whatever happened to Nevada's deer herds? That is"a question which thousands of our residents have asked themselves and have asked our Department of Wildlife in recent
years. Fe\.... of us, if any, have received satisfactory answers. We have heaid all kinds of reasons or excuses for the" demise of our deer herds such as overgrazing by
livestock, deer dying off from eating crested wheat grass, Pinion-Juniper encroachment upon browse habitat. and that the damned poachers ill Linc~rn County are killing off all of the deer, but none-of these explanations really ring true to those of us who have lived most of our lives in Nevada.
Why has the average annual harvest in Nevada dropped froiil more than 24,000 deer per year for the 15 years from 1951 through 1965 to an average of just 12,000 per year for
the past 15 years? From a reco~d high harvest of nearly 35,000 deer in 1955 we dropped to a.dismally low harvest of only 4,925 deer in 1975. WHY?
We all realize:that there are complex factors affecting wildlife numbers, and many of these such as "hard winters" cannot be controlled by man. But what about the things which we can control? Those of us who can recall the hunting during the good years remember that we harvested a lot of does or antlerless dEer during that time, and we all have a tendency to want to place the blame for our present shortage of deer on that factor. This may have played some part in our past decline~ but after collecting
and analyzing all of the harvest data from the past 30 years, I no longer feel that this was the major factor. We maintained an antlerless" harvest of 40 to 50 per cent from 1955 through 1965 with no obvious decline in the total deer herds or ha-rvest. If antlerless harvest was responsible for the declining total numbers of deer in our state, then the decline should have started immediately after the record harvest in
1955, but this was not the case. The severely cold winters preceding the low harvest in 1975 may have contributed to that particular sharp decl ine. But since that time we have had several mild winters. we have eliminated the antlerless harvest, and we have severely restricted the hunting pressure and harvest with the establishment of
the restrictive quota system and drawing for tags in 1976. The present system has eliminated more than half of the deer hunters who were hunting in Nevada in previous years. Yet in spite of these efforts by our Department of Wildl ife and the recent mild winters, we have not seen a significant increase in o~r deer herds. In "fact. Area "23 in Uncoln County where 1- grew.up, has continued to decline until the deer numbers there are now at there lowest level in 35 Years.
Why did we have the tremendous increase in our deer numbers following 1950 and the sudden decline after 1965? As far as I know, our Department of Wildlife has never offered a satisfactory explanation: However, from my research of this problem during the past several months, I have come across one important factor which corresponds exactly with the growth and? decline of our deer herds, and that is PREDATOR CONTROL~ For some reason. our .Department of ~/ildl ife has chosen to overloQk or ignore this important factor. But once you learn of the starting and ending dates for effective predator control in Nevada and plot these on the deer harvest graph, it becomes . obvious that there is a very strong positive correlation between our deer population
and predator control.
One of the most serious predators on deer in Nevada is the mountain lion. Wildl.ife biologists have calculated from their studies and observations that a lion on the
average will kill a deer every 7 to 10 days. This would indicate from our Department of Hildlife's very conservative estimate of nearly 600 lions in Nevada last year that
the deer harvest by? lions is at least 30,000 per year. In addition to this, the coyotes and bobcats are killing another 50.000 to 60,000 deer per year. S9 now we find ourselves in a situation in which the predators are taking 8 to 9 times?as many deer each year in Nevada as the hunters are allowed to harvest.
Did our Department of Wildlife or the State Board of Wildlife Commissioners ever consult you and me about protecting the predators or eliminating effective predator control at the cost of losing half of our mule deer harvest each year? I don't believe they ever explained it to us in those terms. did they? I feel that it is time that we took a hard.look at our past and present wildlife management policies and decide whether or not we are pleased with the outlook for our future? and for our children's future. I am not at all pleased with the things which I have learned.
~nd I ~m confident that the vast majority of our sportsmen will feel? the same way when they learn these facts. I would appreciate hearing from other concerned
sportsmen who \"oul d 11 ke to share the1 r vi ews.
BRUCE 1-/. lIltt:IK, H.D., Hember Wnite Pine County Game ~lnnage!Tle-nt Board
My Testimony on Predator Control !!!
I've studied wildlife biology in my my younger days, am a outdoor and wildlife enthusiast in heart and will always will be , it's just in my blood . When I was going through school, I wanted to become a wildlife biologist . I never did pus the career due to other adventures that came, but I did become acquainted w/ a few good wildlife biologists . To this day I still keep in touch w/ these people whom are now retired . Everyday that I'm out in the field (Arizona Strip typically), whether it's observing mule deer or just to be out hiking, I take everything about my adventure's into account, the habitat, environment, ecosystem etc etc .
Plain and simple I'm a mule deer fanatic, and I'd like to see the mule deer herd #'s rebound like they use to be back in the 50's and 60's or at least close to where they were back then . Wouldn't that be GREAT ?
There is a lot to take into account that has been affecting our deer herds . Whether it's habitat , deer kills on the highways, deer tags being allocated each year, drought, drastic winter kill and predator control . One thing thats great about "History", is that you can go back and study or analyze statistics !!! As I've been doing my personal research, talking to biologist, looking up archives etc, the biggest affects on or mule deer herds are predators . The government has implemented to many regulations on our predators, resulting into a predator population explosion ! The other Predator to consider now is your Golden Eagle . When I heard of this I got a hold of a wild life biologist in Hurricane UT, whom is involved w/ Falconry, takes in injured Birds of Prey for the DWR and try's to rehabilitate them before they are let go into the wild again. Yes Golden Eagles will easily kill new born fawns and it's becoming more and more common he says . Why ? Because, due to high Coyote populations, coyotes are also wiping out Rabbit populations, even to the point that DWR has been considering placing the Jack Rabbit and Cottontail Rabbit under the endangered species list . Hence, due to the more scarce rabbit populations, Eagles are going after bigger prey, FAWNS !!!
History statistics prove that better predator control will result in increasing deer herds . The Government is not doing a darn thing , so as outdoor sportsman, we all need to put forth better efforts in bring down the predators . As of now, there is an adequate amount of mule deer habitat to sustain bigger deer herds . Without better predator control, mule deer #'s will continue to go down hill, it's just inevitable .
I hope you find these few Testimony's from "Past Government Trappers" who did make a difference in our mule deer herds, hope you find it resourceful !!! My Testimony included .
For those who, please share your thoughts or testimony's as well . Thanks .
Being a trapper, it was always my practice to stop every quarter mile or so and walk up a draw or wash to check for tracks and sign, so I had occasion to see those kinds of things.
Desert tortoise not only eat cow pies on dry years but they eat cow pies on good years too. The'two best feed years I remember were 1949 and 1958. Of the tWO;-~~9 was the best. That year the grass and Filigree were clear up above your knees everywhere, on the ridges and in the draws.
Indian Wheat was the most abundant plant .found on the ridges, but, in the draws and washes it was Filigree. I remember stopping my pickup in a draw where the feed was so thick I couldn't get the pickup going again without first backing up to get a run at it.
The feed was just like an alfalfa fi-eld. Except for the trails they made, you couldn't even tell where the sheep had been. I had one herder told me that he hadn't had to take his sheep to water for three weeks (there being sufficient moisture in the vegetation to meet the needs of the animalsi.
When I first went to work as a trapper there on the Arizona Strip in 1945, there were 32 different outfits that wintered their sheep on the strip. I covered all the country from Lake Powell to Lake Mead, and from Kanab, Utah to the Southern tip of the Kaibab, a country 150 miles long and 85 miles wide.
It's a rough and isolated country There were periods when I'd never see another person for six or eight days at a time. Altogether I worked there for just two mouths less then 32 years. I really enjoyed it, I liked the country and I liked the people. . I was always welcome wherever I went. I could pull into any ranch or cow camp anytime and stay as long as necessary.
I
I'd trap the high country, the Kaibab, Mt. Trumbull, and the Virgin Maintains in the summer, then work my way down so r would have the low country to trap during the winter. We never put poison out in the same areas every year. We only used poison when the coyotes got ahead of our trapping.
It's unfair the way the government is putting people off the range these days. They say that the cattle and sheep have overgrazed and hurt the feed in this country, but if that were true, then why is it that the feed does so well on wet years?
It's a serious thing when government policy destroys people's livelihoods, particularly when such policy may not be backed by solid evidence. Just because it's the government that is making the decisions, doesn't mean that it's right, or that things will improve. In fact, in most instances government decisions make things worse. Take predator control as an example. Since ,the government began to discourage trapping and began systematically cutting back on predator control, we have lost nearly all of our deer, and we're losing our Mountain Sheep too.
with very few people.
Up here on the Virgin Mountain, where I used to see twelve or fourteen Mounta i n Sheep in a bunch, now you can hardly find a track. The last year I trapped, (the winter of 1988 and 89), the lions were so thick and so hungry they were eating nearly everything I caught. They even ate two of their own kind right out of my traps.
Nature is not "all' wonderful" like so many would like to believe. Nature is cruel. In the wild, if animals are not taken by hunters or trappers they either die of starvation or are killed by predators. In either case suffering is nearly always extreme.
On TV they often show lions or' wolves attacking prey animals, but they never show the whole-k: 1 1. I f they would show how long it actually takes for the animal to die while it's hind quarters and guts are being eaten: and how the animal suffers as it's eaten alive then possibly people wouldundec~tandbetter how cruel Nature really is.
Old deer, when their teeth get bad will get to be a rack of bones before they die. They often go through months of misery. I used to shoot them and put them out of their misery when I found them starving that way.
When I went to get my bobcats tagged in Kingman, (Arizona) in the spring of 1989, I told Clark Fuller, one of the wardens there, about my experience with the lions and how they'd gotten nearly all the deer and were now working on the mountain sheep.
That's when he told me that they were aware of the problem, that they had made three sheep plants there on the Virgin Mountains, some by helicopter. He went on to say, they had put radio collars on fourteen of the sheep, and that since the plant, all fourteen had been killed by lions.
So, the people that are responsible for our game and so forth know what's going on, but they're not speaking out. For some reason that I don't understand, decisions are being made for political purposes, and not for the benefit of wildlife or for the good of the country.
state of Nevada
SECOND ARTICLE
JUly 12.1993 ~---------------~ RIGGS
Ted Riggs, is one of the best known Mule Deer hunters in the West. During a lifetime spent in the Country known as the Arizona Strip, Ted has killed 40 bucks with antler spreads exceeding 30
inches, ten of which measured over 36 inches, and fifteen in the 34 to 36 inch range. His widest buck had a spread of 43 1/2 inches, and scored 249 6/8 Boone and Crockett points.
Ted is best known for the many Mule Deer he has taken, but to those that know him best, his real prowess is as a trapper and tracker. "I've been trapping for 65 years now. When I was 8, I can remember my father would set the traps for me and I would go bury them. By trapping, I was able to put myself through High School during the Great Depression."
Ted was born in 1916 in Kanab, Utah. After being discharged from duty with the U.S. Engineers in 1945 he went to work for U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. "At that time Ranchers were losing 45% of their calves and lambs to predators. We shot coyotes, used coyotes getters, poison (strychnine and arsenic and later 1080)." Four years after we began the ranchers' calf crop jumped to 90%. "1080" was the most effective, we would inject it into the meat of mustangs or burros and scatter it across the desert once a year.
Ted spent 28 years as a guide, mostly hunting Mule Deer. "I'd take three weeks annual leave each fall. Got to know nearly all the Country between Lake Powell and Lake Mead."
"Studied deer and the outdoors all my life. All of the big deer I have killed were a product of predator control. I worked five years on the Arizona Strip before I ever saw a deer."
"Whenever we would slack off in controlling coyotes and lions, deer would get down to nothing. But, as soon as control was started we would have large numbers within five years." "You would see the effects elsewhere too. There were lots of turtles in the 40's and even into the early 70's."
"Predators are just too thick now, a year ago last winter (winter of 1988 and 89) I had my coyote sets set off 20 times by
Mountain Lions. I had to release seven of the big cats." "The lions were so hungry they were eating nearly all the coyotes and fox I was catching. All they would leave was the face, the feet and the tail. The rest of the carcass would be gone, even bones and hide." "There's few animals left out there any more but the lions and coyotes, no Mountain Sheep and hardly any deer." I look for an outbreak of rabies before long, particularly in California .
THIRD ARTICLE
To my knowledge, Dr. Bruce Wilkin of Ely, Nevada was-the first person to attempt calling attention to game predation problems in our state.
Frustrated at our Wi ld life Department's reluctance to even talk of predation, Dr. Wilkin compiled the following information back in 1981.
1\ SECOND OPINION ON f1t.NAGEHENT OF OUR HILDLIFE
Whatever happened to Nevada's deer herds? That is"a question which thousands of our residents have asked themselves and have asked our Department of Wildlife in recent
years. Fe\.... of us, if any, have received satisfactory answers. We have heaid all kinds of reasons or excuses for the" demise of our deer herds such as overgrazing by
livestock, deer dying off from eating crested wheat grass, Pinion-Juniper encroachment upon browse habitat. and that the damned poachers ill Linc~rn County are killing off all of the deer, but none-of these explanations really ring true to those of us who have lived most of our lives in Nevada.
Why has the average annual harvest in Nevada dropped froiil more than 24,000 deer per year for the 15 years from 1951 through 1965 to an average of just 12,000 per year for
the past 15 years? From a reco~d high harvest of nearly 35,000 deer in 1955 we dropped to a.dismally low harvest of only 4,925 deer in 1975. WHY?
We all realize:that there are complex factors affecting wildlife numbers, and many of these such as "hard winters" cannot be controlled by man. But what about the things which we can control? Those of us who can recall the hunting during the good years remember that we harvested a lot of does or antlerless dEer during that time, and we all have a tendency to want to place the blame for our present shortage of deer on that factor. This may have played some part in our past decline~ but after collecting
and analyzing all of the harvest data from the past 30 years, I no longer feel that this was the major factor. We maintained an antlerless" harvest of 40 to 50 per cent from 1955 through 1965 with no obvious decline in the total deer herds or ha-rvest. If antlerless harvest was responsible for the declining total numbers of deer in our state, then the decline should have started immediately after the record harvest in
1955, but this was not the case. The severely cold winters preceding the low harvest in 1975 may have contributed to that particular sharp decl ine. But since that time we have had several mild winters. we have eliminated the antlerless harvest, and we have severely restricted the hunting pressure and harvest with the establishment of
the restrictive quota system and drawing for tags in 1976. The present system has eliminated more than half of the deer hunters who were hunting in Nevada in previous years. Yet in spite of these efforts by our Department of Wildl ife and the recent mild winters, we have not seen a significant increase in o~r deer herds. In "fact. Area "23 in Uncoln County where 1- grew.up, has continued to decline until the deer numbers there are now at there lowest level in 35 Years.
Why did we have the tremendous increase in our deer numbers following 1950 and the sudden decline after 1965? As far as I know, our Department of Wildlife has never offered a satisfactory explanation: However, from my research of this problem during the past several months, I have come across one important factor which corresponds exactly with the growth and? decline of our deer herds, and that is PREDATOR CONTROL~ For some reason. our .Department of ~/ildl ife has chosen to overloQk or ignore this important factor. But once you learn of the starting and ending dates for effective predator control in Nevada and plot these on the deer harvest graph, it becomes . obvious that there is a very strong positive correlation between our deer population
and predator control.
One of the most serious predators on deer in Nevada is the mountain lion. Wildl.ife biologists have calculated from their studies and observations that a lion on the
average will kill a deer every 7 to 10 days. This would indicate from our Department of Hildlife's very conservative estimate of nearly 600 lions in Nevada last year that
the deer harvest by? lions is at least 30,000 per year. In addition to this, the coyotes and bobcats are killing another 50.000 to 60,000 deer per year. S9 now we find ourselves in a situation in which the predators are taking 8 to 9 times?as many deer each year in Nevada as the hunters are allowed to harvest.
Did our Department of Wildlife or the State Board of Wildlife Commissioners ever consult you and me about protecting the predators or eliminating effective predator control at the cost of losing half of our mule deer harvest each year? I don't believe they ever explained it to us in those terms. did they? I feel that it is time that we took a hard.look at our past and present wildlife management policies and decide whether or not we are pleased with the outlook for our future? and for our children's future. I am not at all pleased with the things which I have learned.
~nd I ~m confident that the vast majority of our sportsmen will feel? the same way when they learn these facts. I would appreciate hearing from other concerned
sportsmen who \"oul d 11 ke to share the1 r vi ews.
BRUCE 1-/. lIltt:IK, H.D., Hember Wnite Pine County Game ~lnnage!Tle-nt Board
My Testimony on Predator Control !!!
I've studied wildlife biology in my my younger days, am a outdoor and wildlife enthusiast in heart and will always will be , it's just in my blood . When I was going through school, I wanted to become a wildlife biologist . I never did pus the career due to other adventures that came, but I did become acquainted w/ a few good wildlife biologists . To this day I still keep in touch w/ these people whom are now retired . Everyday that I'm out in the field (Arizona Strip typically), whether it's observing mule deer or just to be out hiking, I take everything about my adventure's into account, the habitat, environment, ecosystem etc etc .
Plain and simple I'm a mule deer fanatic, and I'd like to see the mule deer herd #'s rebound like they use to be back in the 50's and 60's or at least close to where they were back then . Wouldn't that be GREAT ?
There is a lot to take into account that has been affecting our deer herds . Whether it's habitat , deer kills on the highways, deer tags being allocated each year, drought, drastic winter kill and predator control . One thing thats great about "History", is that you can go back and study or analyze statistics !!! As I've been doing my personal research, talking to biologist, looking up archives etc, the biggest affects on or mule deer herds are predators . The government has implemented to many regulations on our predators, resulting into a predator population explosion ! The other Predator to consider now is your Golden Eagle . When I heard of this I got a hold of a wild life biologist in Hurricane UT, whom is involved w/ Falconry, takes in injured Birds of Prey for the DWR and try's to rehabilitate them before they are let go into the wild again. Yes Golden Eagles will easily kill new born fawns and it's becoming more and more common he says . Why ? Because, due to high Coyote populations, coyotes are also wiping out Rabbit populations, even to the point that DWR has been considering placing the Jack Rabbit and Cottontail Rabbit under the endangered species list . Hence, due to the more scarce rabbit populations, Eagles are going after bigger prey, FAWNS !!!
History statistics prove that better predator control will result in increasing deer herds . The Government is not doing a darn thing , so as outdoor sportsman, we all need to put forth better efforts in bring down the predators . As of now, there is an adequate amount of mule deer habitat to sustain bigger deer herds . Without better predator control, mule deer #'s will continue to go down hill, it's just inevitable .
I hope you find these few Testimony's from "Past Government Trappers" who did make a difference in our mule deer herds, hope you find it resourceful !!! My Testimony included .
For those who, please share your thoughts or testimony's as well . Thanks .
