SW Mt. Mule deer article.

[Lawnboy]

http://www.bozemandailychronicle.co...top&utm_source=block_937344&utm_campaign=blox


I almost couldn't believe it when I read this today. Someone please help me understand what in the heck these biologists are thinking.
So reading the article they admit that the numbers were/are in the toilet yet after just a year or two of limiting tags want to increase them again? They talk about overgrazing but what is the overgrazing from. I suspect cattle and not the deer evidently. So why not cut back on the cattle?
I just don't get the commission or the biologists. They seem content on having horrible animal numbers and don't have the backbone to shut things down for more than a year. Hunters at some point have to stop killing them so that they can fully recover. This seems a lot like having a cut on your arm and seeing that a scab is forming but before the wound can heal we pick the scab off The article says that they are seeing a "slight uptick" in the numbers. Well great your plan is starting to work so why go and shoot what few are recovering?

 

[Art Vandeley]

I agree, I was really happy to see them get rid of the B tags. Wouldn't there be large amounts of winter kill if the winter range was overgrazed like they say? Maybe I'm wrong but I haven't heard anything about large winter kill the last few years.

 

[Deleted member 20812]

The bitter brush overgrazing would likely be from too many deer wintering in that area. Bitter brush stands can be slow to regenerate, and my guess is that this is a preemptive attempt to maintain and/or improve the quality of the winter range.

The biologist in that area is very, very good.

 

[Lawnboy]

So wouldn't it make sense that due to the declining numbers of deer over the last 10 years that we should of already seen an improvement on the winter forage? Our numbers are way lower than in years past.

 

[Deleted member 20812]

So wouldn't it make sense that due to the declining numbers of deer over the last 10 years that we should of already seen an improvement on the winter forage? Our numbers are way lower than in years past.

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I don't know, but I bet Craig would take the time to explain it if you asked him.

 

[Deleted member 16014]

If the biologist there is still Vanna, she is very good. While there are exceptions, mule deer and cattle generally have precious little dietary overlap (domestic sheep-deer and cattle-elk are another matter).

Bitterbrush is sensitive to over-use, and is typically not as drought tolerant as sagebrush. Combine heavy use with drought and it can go away and be tough to re-establish. I have seen it browsed out of winter range here in northwest WY in a number of places via photo sequence and historic range data. In shrub community dynamics, 10 years isn't actually much...it takes a very specific set of conditions (soil temp, precip amount, precip timing) to establish new upland shrub seedlings. It can easily be 5 or 10 years between significant recruitment events.

I see your point that adding in B-tags seems counter-intuitive. I'd follow up with the region 3 office and dig into it a little more.

 

[Deleted member 16014]

I should also add that estimating winter range forage is typically not an exact science. You can be accurate with fair precision, but the methods for precise estimation are extremely time consuming and therefore expensive. Typically they employ methods that allow patterns and trends to appear, but may represent ranges that include easily +- 100 lbs/ac of error in forage production.

 

[8andcounting]

Last time I hunted region 7 (November of 2012) the mule doers numbers were awful in my opinion . Last thing I think they should do is off "B" tags in region 7 .

 

[jryoung]

The bio in 331 is Craig Fager.

 

[1_pointer]

I agree with everything that Snowy posted! If the bitterbrush is declining, it's largely not from cattle and domestic sheep would likely only be a problem if wintered there. Their preference is for other species the rest of the year.

Establishing bitterbrush can be done via planting of seedlings, but it is very expensive and labor intensive. Success is dependent upon the same factors that were listed for natural establishment.

This points out an loose correlation I've brought up in the past that was passed to me from a graduate school professor. High domestic sheep numbers in the past can somewhat be correlated to high mule deer numbers. His rationale for that is when there were lots of sheep the agencies and landowners made efforts to grow what sheep eat. Which as SM pointed out above is very similar to what mule deer eat.

That said, one way to promote shrub establishment is annual heavy spring cattle grazing...