Mule Deer Fanatic

Two different reports, one in May and one in June indicate a high winter mortality amongst Mule Deer in South Western Wyoming:
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Associated Press – May 26, 2008 4:45 PM ET

GREEN RIVER, Wyo. (AP) – A mortality survey of Wyoming’s largest mule deer herd indicates that the harsh winter took a toll on the animals.

The annual mortality surveys for the Wyoming Range mule deer herd were conducted this spring near Cokeville, Pinedale and Big Piney and near Leroy in the Bridger Valley.

Wyoming Game and Fish Department biologists and others counted 313 dead mule deer during the Cokeville, Pinedale and Big Piney surveys.

Officials said an additional 340 dead mule deer were found on the Leroy survey in Uinta County, for a total of 653 dead deer.

Game officials noted an unusually high number of adult deer deaths.

Information from: Star-Tribune, http://www.casperstartribune.net

Parts of deer herd hit hard by rough winter
Deaths high around Cokeville, but Pinedale, Daniel fared well.

By Cory Hatch Jackson Hole, Wyoming
June 4, 2008

A harsh winter and poor forage led to a high number of mule deer deaths for portions of the Wyoming Range herd, including some animals that summer near Jackson.

Gary Fralick, a wildlife biologist for the Wyoming Game and Fish Department, said volunteers counted 313 dead mule deer in the Cokeville area, most of which succumbed to starvation or other effects of winter. Thirty-eight percent of the animals were adult and 58 percent were fawns. An additional 340 winter-killed mule deer were found in the Leroy area.

The relatively high percentage of adult deaths compared with fawns is typical during a harsh winter, Fralick said.

“We had severe snow accumulations and extreme temperatures,” he said. The plants deer feed on “are just in poor shape and are not able to sustain these herds over the hard winter because of drought and because [they] are getting old and decadent,” he said. “On that particular winter range, every three years you can pretty much count on a winter that will take a significant portion of that population.”

Fralick said relatively low winter mortality for portions of the herd in the Pinedale, Big Piney and Daniel areas likely compensated for the hit on the population. Winter mortality for the entire herd likely ranged from 5 percent to 15 percent, he said.

“What that means is the other segment of the deer on the winter range came out in outstanding condition,” Fralick said. “There was good winter survival [in Daniel and Big Piney and the Pinedale Mesa] those deer came through the winter in pretty good shape.”

The mule deer herd is the largest in Wyoming, stretching from Interstate 80 to the Snake River Canyon, and in the past has ranged from 20,000 to 50,000 animals.

During a two-year radio-collar study that started in 1990, Fralick said, researchers documented deer from the Cokeville area that migrated to summer ranges in the Greys River Range, the Grayback Ridge area, the Snake River Canyon and into Hoback Basin.

“There’s major movement off of those winter ranges,” he said. “These deer are migrating from winter to summer range 180 to 200 miles.”

Fralick said the high mortality last winter could mean fewer deer going back to summer range in places like the Smiths Fork, Commissary Ridge and the south end of the Salt Range.

Fralick said hunting seasons this year are already set, and most of those seasons’ limits are already conservative. But he said this year’s winter kill could affect hunters in a couple of years.

“That’s going to translate into fewer 2-year-old bucks in two years,” he said.

Heavy rain and snow this winter and spring could help restore forage in the Cokeville area, but Fralick said it’s too late for some of the plants.

“A lot of the browse plans have been dying over the past five years,” he said. “The ones that are still alive it’s going to benefit, but the trend has been toward dead and decadent on these browse plants.”

Fralick said other factors also take a toll, including human land use, drought and especially motor vehicle collisions.

“We lose 200 to 600 or more deer every year on Wyoming Range highways,” he said.

Bob Wharff, executive director of the Wyoming chapter of the Sportsmen for Fish and Wildlife, criticized the Wyoming Game and Fish Department for not initiating emergency feeding for mule deer populations that were hard hit this winter.

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Comment:

“I’m mad that Game and Fish didn’t feed the deer,” he said. “They have told us numerous times that if the conditions got bad that they would institute an emergency feeding program. It makes no sense to me to not take care of that population. I do think we’re morally obligated to do that.