# 99% fawn winterkill in WY?



## DallanC (Jan 13, 2009)

Just got an email detailing the tracking and observation of deer in WY on the winter range for the winter of 2016-17. They state that in the populations they tracked, there was a 99% mortality of fawns this past winter. Only one single collared fawn from the tracked group remained alive.

Fairly bleak news 


-DallanC


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## wyogoob (Sep 7, 2007)

What part of Wyoming? 

Do they know if it's caused by the deep snow (lack of food) or adenovirus?

Do you have a link to the article?

.


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## DallanC (Jan 13, 2009)

wyogoob said:


> What part of Wyoming?
> 
> Do they know if it's caused by the deep snow (lack of food) or adenovirus?
> 
> ...


It came as an email, with alot of very detailed charts and data... I did not post that of course due to site rules. Lemme see if I cant dig up a link to it off a website or something.

If you want pm me your email and I will forward it to you. The email is from Muley Fanatics Foundation but it seems to be research from the University of Wyoming and quite interesting / informative.

-DallanC


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## kdog (May 4, 2015)

DallanC said:


> Just got an email detailing the tracking and observation of deer in WY on the winter range for the winter of 2016-17. They state that in the populations they tracked, there was a 99% mortality of fawns this past winter. Only one single collared fawn from the tracked group remained alive.
> 
> Fairly bleak news
> 
> -DallanC


wow, that is bleak... northern Utah may be impacted similarly woul d be my guess.


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## wyogoob (Sep 7, 2007)

DallanC said:


> It came as an email, with alot of very detailed charts and data... I did not post that of course due to site rules. Lemme see if I cant dig up a link to it off a website or something.
> 
> If you want pm me your email and I will forward it to you. The email is from Muley Fanatics Foundation but it seems to be research from the University of Wyoming and quite interesting / informative.
> 
> -DallanC


Thanks. We've had considerable mule deer fawn loss from adenovirus in Western Wyoming last winter and snow related losses around the Wind Rivers and up around Greybull.

The Muley Fanatic guys in southwest WY have been helping the WY G&F remove dead deer from railroads, highways, even yards in town, this winter.

.


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## N8ON (Oct 7, 2010)

I got it too. They tagged like 70 fawns and only one is still alive.
https://indd.adobe.com/view/fd19b2ea-58aa-4187-a4c9-495797260dd3?mc_cid=a4fad9359b&mc_eid=cc384a82b1


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## DallanC (Jan 13, 2009)

N8ON said:


> I got it too. They tagged like 70 fawns and only one is still alive.
> https://indd.adobe.com/view/fd19b2ea-58aa-4187-a4c9-495797260dd3?mc_cid=a4fad9359b&mc_eid=cc384a82b1


Thanks for posting that link. The email had alot of information and charts, but not near as much detail as your above link seems to have. I'll read it a little later today.

-DallanC


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## muleydeermaniac (Jan 17, 2008)

On my little piece of land (160 Acres) in northern Utah, I can see nine dead fawns with my binos, as I stay out of there as much as possible because it is wintering ground. In a few weeks I will go in and do an actual count. Normally I get a total of eight or nine dead deer a year in there. And most of the does now have no fawns with them at all. I have counted five fawns last weekend which isn't good. And they aren't in great shape either so there may be more on the ground soon.


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## #1DEER 1-I (Sep 10, 2007)

Sadly winter kill is just setting in. There will no doubt be a big loss of fawns this winter in a lot of places. 99% however is a crazy number and worse than I would have expected.


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## Kevin D (Sep 15, 2007)

I had lunch with my biologist buddy the other day and he estimated fawn survival rate along the Wasatch was going to end up around 60% (70% give or take is considered normal). For the Cache and other northern regions though he thought the numbers would be down to around 40%. 

I'm a little skeptical of the Wyoming study's 1% survival rate as being indicative of the whole population, that to me seems an unrealistically high mortality rate. My guess is that it is either a statistical anomaly or their sample population wasn't a good representation of the general population for whatever reason.

$0.02


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## wyogoob (Sep 7, 2007)

*It's not the number ya counted, it's how ya counted them.*



Kevin D said:


> ............................................
> 
> I'm a little skeptical of the Wyoming study's 1% survival rate as being indicative of the whole population, that to me seems an unrealistically high mortality rate. My guess is that it is either a statistical anomaly or their sample population wasn't a good representation of the general population for whatever reason.
> 
> $0.02


Yeah me too. I'm thinkin' if those deer didn't have those cumbersome radio collars around their necks they would have had an easier time getting around in the deep snow. 

Doesn't matter, I seriously doubt if they reduce the numbers of deer tags in western Wyoming. Tags are "over the counter" for residents anyway.

I'm going to the WY big game meeting Tuesday; see what's up first hand.


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## wyogoob (Sep 7, 2007)

wyogoob said:


> Yeah me too. I'm thinkin' if those deer didn't have those cumbersome radio collars around their necks they would have had an easier time getting around in the deep snow.
> 
> Doesn't matter, I seriously doubt if they reduce the numbers of deer tags in western Wyoming. Tags are "over the counter" for residents anyway.
> 
> I'm going to the WY big game meeting Tuesday; see what's up first hand.


Just got back from the Big Game meeting in Evanston. There was a big crowd, lots of outfitters. Most of the meeting was on Mule Deer. Game n Fish biologist gave an interesting presentation on the southern Wyoming Range mule deer herd. It doesn't look good.

The dead radio-collared fawns everyone is talking about came from wintering grounds in an area from north of Evanston to up around Cokeville. Approximately 20,000 deer winter in and around Evanston, Kemmerer, and Cokeville. They migrate from the south half end of the Wyoming Range, southeastern Idaho and Utah's north slope to spend the winter in Uinta County and the southern part of Lincoln County Wyoming.

Fat reserves on radio-collared mature deer are not good, which is a mystery to the game biologists because last year there was abundant forage and the winter before that was mild. We may lose 50% of the entire mule deer herd.

Antelope are not doing as bad as the deer.

Elk are everywhere because all the wolves moved to Utah. :grin: (I just made that up, no one has said anything about wolves at the meetings for a couple of years)

A large part of the Medicine Butte Hunter Management Area northeast of Evanston will be turned over to an outfitter. And ATVs will no longer be allowed on what's left of the Medicine Butte Wildlife Management Area starting this year.

Southwest Wyoming's deer season will probably be 8 days long and 3-point or better. They will still offer an unlimited number of over-the-counter Resident General Deer tags this year.

More later, I'm gonna go cut my wrists.

.


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## wyogoob (Sep 7, 2007)

More "Game n Fish says" notes from the March 28 2017 G&F meeting (My comments are in parenthesis);

Annual survival rate for radio-collared adult mule deer 2012 thru 2016: 92%
Survival rate for radio-collared adult mule deer up to March 10, 2017: 75% A lot of winter left yet and the deer have little fat reserves so the survival rate may go to 50%.

Last time we seen this level of die-offs: 2010/2011.

The Wyoming Range has 40,000 mule deer. In 2016 72 does and 7 fawns were harvested on the Youth Deer Hunt (I wonder about these numbers. Deer harvested on the youth hunt don't have to be checked in.)

The towns of Green River WY, Rock Springs set records for snowfall this year. (Snow year is not over yet.) 

The snow level on Commissary Ridge above Kemmerer 2 weeks ago was 10 foot - March 15 ±.......usually 5 or 6 foot that time of year.

Winter feeding areas with record snow: Red Eye, Rock Creek, Nugget Canyon, Bridger Basin and Woodruff Narrows. Winter Ranges with near-record snow: Sage Creek, Leroy, Carter Lease. (A lot of Utah deer use these winter feeding areas.)

Deer and elk will sometimes hang out in the same area during winters with deep snow cover. This year's late elk hunts (Dec/Jan) have been tough on wintering deer. There's collateral damage from elk hunters pushing deer around in deep snow. 

(They did not talk about the number, if any, deer tag reductions for non-residents and note that there were a number of non-resident guides and resident guides at the meeting.)

(Non-res areas W, K and unit 135 in G - Some deer areas will go to antler point restrictions. Other than that the only proposed tag reductions are in a couple of doe/fawn hunts.)


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## willfish4food (Jul 14, 2009)

Wow! Really sad news for the deer herds! 

On a personal note, for my family it's also a bummer because we were planning a doe hunt out there this fall. Might have to rethink that now...


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## DallanC (Jan 13, 2009)

I've mentioned it here a few months ago... somewhere anyway, the 3 deer we got this year all had noticeably lower amounts of fat compared to prior years. 

I'm sorry to hear that email is proving to be accurate, I hate to see any major populations crash. Hopefully the remainder of the winter is mild and the remaining losses are lower than predicted.


-DallanC


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## wyogoob (Sep 7, 2007)

N8ON said:


> I got it too. They tagged like 70 fawns and only one is still alive.
> https://indd.adobe.com/view/fd19b2ea-58aa-4187-a4c9-495797260dd3?mc_cid=a4fad9359b&mc_eid=cc384a82b1


This link takes you to a deer/elk study on Little Mountain, a unique, and small, area east of Flaming Gorge, just north of the UT/WY border. The area is managed for trophy deer and elk. The highly coveted tags are Limited Quota and tough to draw.

There's a lot of confusion, I'll call it "overlap", of 2016/2017 deer mortality studies in western Wyoming. The info I gleaned at the Evanston Big Game meeting was for the southern end of the Wyoming Range (south half of non-res area G and the north half of non-res area K). This area is managed by the Green River District office.

There was another study performed on the northern part of the Wyoming Range (north half of non-res area G). This is managed by the Jackson District office. There are mortality number similarities between one study area and the other in western WY, but there's striking differences between all the separate studies performed this winter.....so far.

There's a lot of winter left in southwest Wyoming and historically April is the worse month for deer die-offs. We don't the deer like we use to here but there's still around 20,000 that winter here. They come from Utah, Idaho, and all over western Wyoming some as far as Pinedale. Deer tagged in the summer in Jackson Hole have been recorded wintering between Kemmerer and Evanston. The annual deer migration here is something to behold. The deer, young and old travel nose-to-tail in strings miles and miles long, now after the rifle season. Nothing will stop them. They end up in basins with Big and Black Sagebrush and wind-swept hillsides in places like Rock Creek, Nugget Canyon, Red Eye, Bridger Basin, Cumberland Flats and Woodruff Narrows, to name a few.

The WY Game and Fish solicits the help of the outdoor public in deer mortality surveys every May. They try to cover, on foot, by ATV, and on horseback, areas where deer winter up; where deer die from natural causes. There's one such survey at Sage Creek Junction north of Randolph and another at Leroy east of Evanston where the railroad crosses I80. Both winter feed areas hold deer from Utah. Come on down. They are a lot of fun and the Department allows you to keep any sheds or heads you find.

.


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## sambo3006 (Feb 25, 2016)

wyogoob,
Any new information?


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## muleydeermaniac (Jan 17, 2008)

When is the deer survey? I'd love to come help out!



wyogoob said:


> This link takes you to a deer/elk study on Little Mountain, a unique, and small, area east of Flaming Gorge, just north of the UT/WY border. The area is managed for trophy deer and elk. The highly coveted tags are Limited Quota and tough to draw.
> 
> There's a lot of confusion, I'll call it "overlap", of 2016/2017 deer mortality studies in western Wyoming. The info I gleaned at the Evanston Big Game meeting was for the southern end of the Wyoming Range (south half of non-res area G and the north half of non-res area K). This area is managed by the Green River District office.
> 
> ...


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## Packout (Nov 20, 2007)

I attended the "Utah Big Game Window Sticker Convention" in WY on May 1st. We were in an area of Western WY that holds a lot of wintering G deer. My "Arm-Chair" biologist side spent way too much time looking at the live deer and getting a feel for the herd. We saw well over 1,000 deer in 2 different areas. I was very surprised at the number of live fawns-- my estimate was 30-40 fawns per 100 doe. I saw many doe with a fawn or two tagging along. Also very hopeful with the number of bucks we saw alive and the lack of bucks we found dead. The deer looked to be in good shape, physically.

We did find 10x the winterkill as we normally find-- but most of those were fawns and only a few adult deer. I usually find 3-6 winterkills in a day. This year I found around 40. But the herd numbers are way up from 5 years ago, so it stands to reason the winter kills would go up too and couple that with the winter I was expecting many more than we found. 

So while I'm sure some pockets got hit harder, I think that the overall outlook is positive. My 2 cents.


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