A majority of comment-writing hunters are resisting plans to extend hunting seasons and lift antler requirements for two premiere northwestern Wyoming mule deer herds.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The regulations they seek to keep, however, will not achieve a chief goal of accelerating the herds\u2019 recovery, biologists say.<\/p>\n
The Sublette and Wyoming Range mule deer herds were hit hard by the\u00a02022-23 winter\u2019s long-lasting and \u201cinverted\u201d<\/a>\u00a0snowpack. The latter crashed,\u00a0losing roughly two-thirds<\/a>\u00a0of its deer.\u00a0<\/p>\n Three years later, biologists say they\u2019re\u00a0seeing signs of recovery<\/a>. Fawn ratios are impressively high, so are survival rates, and the populations are rebounding.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cIt was a devastating winter, by all accounts,\u201d said Brandon Scurlock, wildlife management coordinator for the Wyoming Game and Fish Department\u2019s Pinedale Region. \u201cBut we are bouncing back.\u201d<\/p>\n The Wyoming Range Herd, for example, grew from a nadir of about 10,300 deer to 15,500 animals after the 2025 hunting season, Scurlock said. Although that\u2019s still just about half of its pre-2022-23 winter population (29,580 deer), the herd\u2019s resurgence has motivated the agency\u2019s biologists and wardens to back off two hunting season changes made in the deadly winter\u2019s wake. To placate concerned hunters and outfitters who were\u00a0even voluntarily giving up their tags<\/a>, Game and Fish shortened the season starting in 2023 and imposed a widespread requirement that mule deer bucks have at least four points or more on either antler to be huntable.\u00a0<\/p>\n This spring, the state agency proposed to mostly roll those measures back in\u00a0its draft 2026 hunting regulations<\/a>. Lengthened hunting seasons and no more antler requirements are both slated for the two herds, which dwell in 18 different hunt areas in northwestern Wyoming.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cWe think there\u2019s some opportunity there,\u201d Scurlock said. \u201cWe\u2019re quick to shorten seasons in response to winter kill. We\u2019re trying to encourage managers to liberalize [opportunities] as the population bounces back as well.\u201d<\/p>\n The changes are not expected to impact the mule deer herds\u2019 recovery whatsoever.\u00a0<\/p>\n Population trajectories in deer herds are based on does producing fawns, and those youngsters surviving. Neither female nor fawn mule deer can be legally hunted in either herd. Bucks, which are the subject of the hunting season changes, do not impact population trends unless sex ratios become extraordinarily lopsided. They\u2019re not in the Sublette (43 bucks:100 does) and Wyoming range (38 bucks:100 does) herds.\u00a0<\/p>\n Nevertheless, most hunters who have taken the time to write Game and Fish commissioners are resisting the changes.<\/p>\n \u201cI would like to propose that the antler restriction remain the same for the 2026 season for the Wyoming Range areas,\u201d Afton resident Tristan Mack wrote\u00a0in a public comment<\/a>. \u201cWhile we have 5,500 more deer, which is great progress, I fear that beginning to take away restrictions too soon may regress the progress that has been made.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n Blake Gipson of Diamondville wrote that he\u2019s \u201cvehemently opposed\u201d to the draft regulation changes.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cWith the Wyoming Range mule deer population still so low,\u201d Gipson wrote, \u201cI fail to understand why the state is both extending the season and removing the antler restriction, opening a larger portion of the herd to harvest.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n Casper resident Tanner Fischer made a similar point.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cProposing to extend the season through October 4 while also changing it to \u2018any buck\u2019 is a step in the wrong direction in my opinion,\u201d Fischer wrote. \u201cOpening it to \u2018any buck\u2019 will put additional pressure on younger deer that should be allowed to mature and help rebuild the population.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n But other hunters backed the proposed changes.<\/p>\n \u201cBased on the data provided by Game and fish, these [antler] restrictions tend to be most beneficial over a short period \u2014 roughly three years \u2014 and can become counterproductive when extended beyond that timeframe,\u201d wrote Cora resident Braxton Hamilton, who also supported extending the season length.\u00a0<\/p>\n Teton County resident Glenn Owings agreed, offering \u201cstrong support\u201d for ending antler requirements: \u201cThat strategic effort has run its course, and it\u2019s time to remove it.\u201d<\/p>\n Game and Fish commissioners will make the final decision about hunting regulations for the Sublette and Wyoming Range mule deer herds \u2014 and all other Wyoming elk, deer and pronghorn herds \u2014 on Wednesday, April 22 in Casper. Meeting details are posted online at\u00a0WGFD.wyo.gov\/commission<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n After the\u00a0slowest hunting season in 30 years<\/a>, which came in the fall following the harrowing winter of 2022-23, Wyoming Range mule deer hunters are starting to find more success. Over the five hunting seasons leading up to the devastating winter, 33% of hunters were successful, and they killed an average of 1,661 buck mule deer.<\/p>\n In the fall of 2023, hunter success declined dramatically: Hunters killed an estimated 416 deer, with a 16% success rate. The picture improved somewhat during the 2024 season, when hunters killed 620 mule deer with a 21% success rate. Last fall, Wyoming Range mule deer hunters were 27% successful, killing 992 buck deer, according to\u00a0harvest reports<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n It\u2019ll likely take another few years for hunters to be as successful as they were before the 2022-23 winter, the deadliest in at least four decades. The complete recovery of the Wyoming Range Herd is possible, but hunters will need to be patient.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cYou can\u2019t recover 70% of a population within a period of a couple years,\u201d said Kevin Monteith, a University of Wyoming ecology professor who\u2019s led a\u00a0long-running study of the Wyoming Range Herd<\/a>. \u201cThat\u2019s just not possible.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n Still, the herd\u2019s population dynamics are looking promising. Since the 2022-23 winter, Monteith\u2019s research crews have documented the heftiest fawns, the highest fawn survival rates and the\u00a0fattest females<\/a>\u00a0since they started the research project in 2013.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cThe population is poised to grow,\u201d Monteith said, \u201cgiven all those factors.\u201d<\/p>\n This article was originally published by\u00a0WyoFile<\/a>\u00a0and is republished here with permission.\u00a0WyoFile<\/a>\u00a0is an independent nonprofit news organization focused on Wyoming people, places and policy.<\/p>\n \n\tRelated<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"THANKS TO OUR COMMUNITY PARTNERS by\u00a0Mike Koshmrl, WyoFile A majority of comment-writing hunters are resisting plans to extend…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":594393,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[51],"tags":[79,201],"class_list":["post-594392","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-wildlife","tag-science","tag-wildlife"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/594392","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=594392"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/594392\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/594393"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=594392"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=594392"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=594392"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/Fieseler-and-fawn-2-1024x838.jpg\")
Wyoming Game and Fish Department Habitat Biologist Troy Fieseler unscrews a GPS collar from a deceased yearling mule deer in the Wyoming Range in May 2023. (Mike Koshmrl\/WyoFile)<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/Wyo-range-mule-deer-corridor.jpg\")
Click to enlarge:\u00a0In only four years, researchers captured and collared 126 mule deer and tracked 505 migration sequences throughout the Wyoming Range, revealing the migration route mapped here. (Wyoming Game and Fish Department)<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/IMG_4202-768x1024.jpeg\")
Click to enlarge:\u00a0A hunter harvested this Wyoming Range mule deer in September 2022. (Mike Koshmrl\/WyoFile)<\/p>\n