Western Wyoming Deer Opener

I already said I agreed with most of that but it’s very generic. You state an increase in elk harvest. I have been stating this over and over and over until I’m blue in the face we need far more Cow elk harvest. My other suggestions are increased predator control, winter range habitat enhancement projects but we have been doing those for decades. Your suggestions were likely for the Casper area, I don’t hunt there much but recently did hunt area 34 and was not impressed compared to what G/H were in the past. If you haven’t hunted G/H much you can’t have any knowledge of how bad those high mountain alpine basins are loaded with elk in September which once every basin held dozens of big bucks and elk were scarce. Now it’s the opposite, elk are plentiful and deer are scarce. During the deer hunt in September I now see hunters and elk in all those basins and very few deer, on the Winter ranges the quality of bucks has slipped tremendously from decades past. I propose we limit buck harvest somehow. One suggestion is to align area 135 with the rest of the areas and either start them all on the same date. Founder suggests and I agree the outfitters are hammering them with a 3 week long season, we should cut that back to 2 weeks. Finally I suggest some mechanism where we still allow General hunting but try and decrease the harvest by offering a 2 year license with only 1 tag attached. This might help decrease the harvest a bit. I personally think APR are not what we need in the Wyoming Range as most hunters aren’t taking the yearling bucks they are hugely knocking out the 2-3 year old bucks though and this is one reason our genetic quality is decreasing on the Wyoming Range, especially with inferior spike bucks doing the breeding. I don’t follow your APR suggestion and how it would be applied to areas G/H?

You keep saying spikes are doing the breeding on the Wyoming range...any proof of that? I cant find anything that would suggest that's the case. Matter of fact, its wayyyy less common to find a spike mule deer buck than a 2 point. I think you're just stuck on that Texas game farm study...you need to get over it.

Also, you never answered the question on where in Wyoming there wasn't adequate buck to doe ratios to breed all the available does, certainly not in the Wyoming Range.

I just don't believe about 75% of what you're saying and what you think will solve the problem.
 
You keep saying spikes are doing the breeding on the Wyoming range...any proof of that? I cant find anything that would suggest that's the case. Matter of fact, its wayyyy less common to find a spike mule deer buck than a 2 point. I think you're just stuck on that Texas game farm study...you need to get over it.

Also, you never answered the question on where in Wyoming there wasn't adequate buck to doe ratios to breed all the available does, certainly not in the Wyoming Range.

I just don't believe about 75% of what you're saying and what you think will solve the problem.
I have seen quite a few spike deer the last few years, more so than I ever have on the Winter ranges. The buck/doe ratios are at about 29/100 historical lows, but what percentage of those are young bucks? I am seeing many dry does in early summer months, which also correlated with the observations by the biologists of low fawn recruitment they have been observing. If you actually spend as much time as I do out here and you study what the biologists are publishing with historical low buck/doe ratios and my opinion these 29 are about 50% made up of yearling bucks then we really are scraping the bottom of the barrel to keep all these does bred. Many studies demonstrate yearling bucks have a 10-20% less fertility rate and don’t have the stamina to support large harems of does. I don’t believe 100% of your well established IGNORANCE.
 
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Have the same opening dates for all of G and H areas and a 7 day season... That would help for sure... Sit back and watch the outfitters scream and the commission kick the can down the road....
Great simple synopsis if it can be approved. Only other suggestion I would add is target more Cow elk harvest.
If elk are having a negative influence on deer populations, what can managers do to positively influence deer? Ac- knowledgment that not every piece of land may be able to support large populations of both species is an important first step.
Some options for management include
1) Select some areas (at landscape levels) where management will favor mule deer and others where elk will be
favored,
2) Implement actions that return habitats to early successional stages with a lot of shrubs (such as prescribed fire
and timber harvest to reduce stand density, and seeding with favored mule deer forages),
3) In areas where elk winter ranges do not overlap deer, improve habitat for elk (enhance grass-dominated ranges
and reduce human activity),
4) Consider structuring elk hunting seasons to reduce potential impacts on deer, and
5) Consider reducing elk populations in selected areas (must include adequate monitoring of deer population
responses).
 

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