Montana Mule Deer Mismanagement

[Forkyfinder]

Maybe make more LE districts in different zones? Maybe choose units that have over 75% (or some %) public land.

Last 2/3 weeks LE and you can sell a lot of points and applications.

 

[SAJ-99]

Last 2/3 weeks LE and you can sell a lot of points and applications.

Not giving Montanans 5 wks rifle hunting in the rut is an assault on traditional and values.

 

[Forkyfinder]

Not giving Montanans 5 wks rifle hunting in the rut is an assault on traditional and values.

They still get to. If the caps are matched with existing preasure.

Theyd just have to pick a region (or unit) and burn bonus points to do it.

 

[antlerradar]

I don’t disagree with this at all. It’s one thing to look at the mistakes from the past and learn from them though, and another to moan and groan about how great it used to be.

One is constructive analysis, and ultimately still forward looking. The other is useless nostalgia.

I don't like what I see looking forward, Much easier on my sanity to live in the past.

 

[SAJ-99]

They still get to. If the caps are matched with existing preasure.

Theyd just have to pick a region (or unit) and burn bonus points to do it.

They are not going to agree to burn their points.

 

[cgasner1]

They are not going to agree to burn their points.

I’d burn mine they aren’t worth much anyway

 

[bigsky2]

They still get to. If the caps are matched with existing preasure.

Theyd just have to pick a region (or unit) and burn bonus points to do it.

Existing pressure is too much if we keep hunting for the duration of the rut.

 

[Forkyfinder]

Existing pressure is too much if we keep hunting for the duration of the rut.

Its not existing pressure for NR and R.

Itd be dramatically less NR pressure.

 

[Forkyfinder]

They are not going to agree to burn their points.

Theres a lot more of schlubs with little to no points that arent worth anything. Id love to see the odds of getting a trophy permit getting better with a "rut opportunity permit" making people burn points. Making them worth something (either to use often or to hold on to) would be a refreshing change.

Fwp would get rich on point and permit apps. The only person stung is the outfitters.

 

[antlerradar]

No, it was just my way of detecting sample or harvest bias. Obviously, total recruitment year to year plays a role as well. But, given true random sampling, the graphs I posted above shouldn't happen.

I wounder just how much this data is influenced by the bad droughts. With the poor fawn crop in those years, there just wasn't many young bucks to shoot in 2023, so people just hunted harder to kill fewer older deer remaining.

 

[Forkyfinder]

I wounder just how much this data is influenced by the bad droughts. With the poor fawn crop in those years, there just wasn't many young bucks to shoot in 2023, so people just hunted harder to kill fewer older deer remaining.

Droughts and winters...

 

[D_Walt]

I’ve not hunted Montana and probably never will, but from the outside looking in this thread would be laughable if it wasn’t such a sad wildlife situation.

One of the times I popped into this thread someone (probably Buzz) said just kill them all and start over. Seems like that is the only way to get the “public’s” attention. Seems to be a political situation more than a habit/wildlife management/biologist situation. Until it starts to hurt at the polls there won’t be any change. Good luck.

 

[BuzzH]

I wounder just how much this data is influenced by the bad droughts. With the poor fawn crop in those years, there just wasn't many young bucks to shoot in 2023, so people just hunted harder to kill fewer older deer remaining.

More than people think. It was also what's happened with bull elk in Western Montana. When all you have available is mature bulls on public, they take a lickin'. Made even worse when you have crap recruitment and elk harboring because of so much general OTC pressure.

Ask Kurt.

 

[Frequently Banned Troll]

 

[antlerradar]

@antlerradar - if the quality was to improve, wouldnt the good hunting (with no LE) be quickly discovered and hunted hard again?

Thats why i wish for generous LE.

I would like to think that there is a way to improve quality and still be able to hunt every year. The way to accomplish is by putting more risk of tag soup if you chose to be selective. Long seasons, hunting the rut, open terrain, freezer filler tags and today's technology all give us the luxury of being able to be selective. For the individual hunter it is awesome. Not so much for the herd when a big percentage of hunters are selective. The more selective we are the less random the harvest and the more focused the harvest is on a smaller percentage of the herd. Bucks with the potential to grow a larger set of antlers die young an by the bullet and bucks with poor antlers will live longer and are more likely to die of natural causes. We need to get to a more random harvest.
LE may not be the solution you think it is. Even if we cut tags in half, but the half of hunters can still be selective and target the the quarter of the bucks with the best potential, we are not going to add much age to the better potential quarter of the herd and the poorer potential 3/4 will live longer and many more will die of natural causes.
With the states increasing population we may have to some day go to LE, but even then I would still push for more risk of tag soup because the less selective we are the more tags we can give out.

 

[WanderWoman]

Absolutely. Even though some don't want to accept reality, the FWP is a huge part of why we find ourselves in this mess.

The whole time predators were making gains, via severely reduced lion quotas (FWP management), the increases in grizzlies and wolves, there was also no or severely delayed response on cow/doe harvest. Also as you noted, increases in weapon efficiency, GPS use, etc.

By the time the FWP reacted to what should have been intuitively obvious, it was too late.

Once herds are reduced to the levels we have now, the only way to see them rebound is drastic management changes.

I always thought it was impossible to severely impact whitetail populations where I hunt. But, after 3 seasons of hunters being able to kill 1-3 does each, 2 of those OTC, and a buck...I was wrong. It's been over 10 years and the deer still aren't back to what they were.

Elk are the same way after the brain trust at FWP implemented "cow week", the elk have not recovered from that, likely never will.

Mule deer no different, years and years of being able to kill does on B tags and any deer for 3-7 days.

I argued for decades with a past biologist that what they were doing was unsustainable, may as well have been talking to a wall.

Chickens have come home to roost...and I'm not happy to say, "I told them so".

But, nothing will change, so we have that going for us.

Have you thought about applying for a wildlife manager or other somewhat-influential FWP position, and as Gandhi puts it, being the change you wish to see?

 

[antlerradar]

@antlerradar - if the quality was to improve, wouldnt the good hunting (with no LE) be quickly discovered and hunted hard again?

Thats why i wish for generous LE.

Not sure I answered your question with my last rant. Hunters have always flocked to the next best place in MT. The problem is MT is running out of next best places so people are taking management into there own hands and leasing up private land. Would LE stop this. It might, but if you think that the legislator is bad now with giving out special tags to landowners and the wealthy, just wait until the entire state is LE.

 

[Forkyfinder]

Without trying to spot burn Buzz’s reference hunting area, it has actually burned multiple times in a large area.

It takes a long time to habitat your way out of a situation where the overall predation overwhelms recruitment. Even longer if the overwhelm of predation doesn’t diminish while habitat is improved.

The best habitat in the world won’t add more deer or elk to the landscape if there’s 30% of the population killed each year and only 20% recruited the following year.

It’s a whole different reality on the ground in western MT than it was from 1960-1990. Recovery of wolves, full carrying capacity of mountain lions, same amount of black bears, increasing number of grizzlies, loss of winter range to development or human intrusion, higher human populations.

Add in increased harvest efficiency with increased technology and mobility and expansion of seasons as Buzz noted above.

Insert definition of insanity at this point….(…..)

Hmm, it seems that numbers are down. Ironically, numbers are down in areas that have relatively good habitat as well. There’s a lot of NW MT that still has extensive logging and has burned in the past ten years.

What a lot of folks don’t seem to realize is that we’re not on a trajectory to maintain the current level of quality with this amount of “opportunity”.

Look at Region 6 and 7 for example. It took a drastic reduction in opportunity to harvest does to slow the drop in population and move it up slightly from the lowest point in the past ten years. What would 2024’s numbers look like of the prior year’s antlerless harvest had been maintained at the level of when the population was at LTA? It took hunters forcing FWP via legislative action to change their management policies. I’m thankful those folks stepped up and demanded the change.

Sean has some numbers for buck harvest in region 6. If memory serves me correctly that region is down 41% from LTA population even while buck harvest is 250% of LT harvest.

Anyone want to predict the trajectory of what region 6!is going to look like in five years?

Wait - so what youre saying would be something like pushing the department to issue more elk b (unlimited?) tags would be a bad thing? Welcome aboard Gerald - ive had that opinion through the legislative session. I wish you would have too.

Recruitment fawn rates are directly related to habitat - especially critical winter and spring habitat. So i certainly disagree that its not related.

The logging is entitely different than 50 years ago - seems obvious given no one can stay in business as a mill.

 

[BuzzH]

Have you thought about applying for a wildlife manager or other somewhat-influential FWP position, and as Gandhi puts it, being the change you wish to see?

You think the average commissioner is more qualified?

I don't.

How many have worked in the woods for 35 years looking at habitat and hunted for 40 years? How many have biology degrees? How many have natural resources degrees?

If you think all I do is just blast wildlife without giving things thought and trying to understand what's going on and what impact I'm having...you'd be wrong.

Why it's becoming increasingly difficult for me to pull the trigger these days. Why I don't shoot or hunt mule deer anymore in Montana, rarely kill a bull elk there too. It's not because I can't, it's because not only shouldn't I be doing so, nobody should be.

I'm forced to manage when the departments won't. Also why my wife and I draw doe/fawn pronghorn tags, 2 each, and wing them in the trash every year.

But to answer your question, not a chance in hell. I tend to put the health of wildlife as a top priority, not 10th fiddle to the needs of outfitters, land owners, real estate agents, insurance companies, and whining hunters.

A vast majority of management decisions these days have nothing to do with what's best for wildlife, public lands, etc. The decisions are now based on social needs and politics. Wildlife survives in spite of what we do in more and more case, not because of what we do right.

It's a good thing wildlife is as resilient as it is or it would be hosed.

 

[WanderWoman]

You think the average commissioner is more qualified?

I don't.

How many have worked in the woods for 35 years looking at habitat and hunted for 40 years? How many have biology degrees? How many have natural resources degrees?

If you think all I do is just blast wildlife without giving things thought and trying to understand what's going on and what impact I'm having...you'd be wrong.

Why it's becoming increasingly difficult for me to pull the trigger these days. Why I don't shoot or hunt mule deer anymore in Montana, rarely kill a bull elk there too. It's not because I can't, it's because not only shouldn't I be doing so, nobody should be.

I'm forced to manage when the departments won't. Also why my wife and I draw doe/fawn pronghorn tags, 2 each, and wing them in the trash every year.

But to answer your question, not a chance in hell. I tend to put the health of wildlife as a top priority, not 10th fiddle to the needs of outfitters, land owners, real estate agents, insurance companies, and whining hunters.

A vast majority of management decisions these days have nothing to do with what's best for wildlife, public lands, etc. The decisions are now based on social needs and politics. Wildlife survives in spite of what we do in more and more case, not because of what we do right.

It's a good thing wildlife is as resilient as it is or it would be hosed.

Would you please point out where I said that the average commissioner is more qualified and you’re not?

I don’t think you blast wildlife, but I do think you’re pretty adept at blasting wildlife professionals, who, even if one disagrees with their methods or recommendations, don’t deserve to be trashed online or characterized as gaslighters, or of thinking “what they have now is the ‘best’ they’ve ever seen” (particularly when they write reports that literally say things like, “XX% below long-term average”). I highly doubt that field-staff at FWP wake up in the morning trying to decide who they’re going to bamboozle, or consciously want there to be no more public land elk or 4.5-year old mule deer. Unless of course as part of “giving things thought and trying to understand” you’ve had conversations (with an adequate sample of biologists of course) that have revealed such. If so, my apologies.

Perhaps instead of Gandhi, I should have used the “man in the arena” quote, and I say this knowing full well you have a history of being in the arena on complex and challenging wildlife conservation and public access issues. For that, thank you. Really. I also know a whole slew of FWP biologists that are “in the arena” trying to conserve and manage the resource appropriately, improve private land access, etc., regardless of the disconnect between what/how they do and how it’s perceived. From that history and your background, I’d hope you’d understand a little bit more about the depth and breadth in complexity and challenges that wildlife management and public service is growing into in MT. I won’t rehash all the issues, there’s 130+ pages of that here and elsewhere. What I get from your posts is that no matter what, FWP has all the wrong answers and you have all the right ones, and in your current role as a member of the public advocating for what you want (and thank you for that, too), FWP is so lost, and so corrupt(?), there needs to be a complete do-over. So, get in there and fix it, show them how it’s done, and deal with all the other sides of the public, too. If you don’t think that the current biologists and managers care about the health of the resource, be that change. I’d also like to be a fly on the wall when you try to tell that to said biologist or manager.

If you’d rather take management into your own hands by tossing two pronghorn tags a year, more power to you. I’ll cross my fingers those same two antelope aren’t harvested by someone else or otherwise killed/starved/eaten later on.

Criminy, the last 10 pages or more of this is criticizing FWP for not adequately managing mule deer, and here they are, after revamping AHM in 2021, reopening and completely redoing the entire state management plan for mule deer, again, less than four years later, largely due to public desire to see such (and absolutely yes, a need for it too). In this instance, FWP is literally doing what I feel like the purpose of this thread was initially for — to examine and revise mule deer management in Montana. It’s still going to be a long road ahead but isn’t that in itself kind of a win?

I think it’s great that you’re passionate Buzz, and holy cow I’d love to sit down and hear some undoubtedly awesome hunting stories from even when before I was born, when things were actually good. But I think your arguments and reasoning would be much more powerful (and likely taken much more seriously) if your approach was slightly different.