Wyoming Game and Fish details mule deer decline, outlines research and habitat focus

Wyoming Game and Fish officials told the Joint Travel, Recreation, Wildlife & Cultural Resources Committee on June 6 that mule deer numbers in the state have declined substantially and the agency is expanding monitoring, research and habitat work to try to halt and reverse the trend. Deputy Chief of Wildlife Justin Benton said the department’s current statewide estimate is about 231,000 mule deer and that numbers have fallen roughly 50% compared with peaks in past decades.

The agency said the decline is the product of many interacting factors — weather variability, diminished habitat quality, human development, competition from other ungulates, disease and predation — and that no single “magic bullet” exists. Benton told the committee that fawn survival has been below the level needed to sustain herds in 18 of the past 25 years and that the winter of…