Western state winterkill

[Pony Soldier]

We tend to generalize our habitat and especially winter range. I live on summer range. My fences ceased to exist a month ago. The county has the snow stacked up 10-12 ft. All the drift fences are buried. Other than my stock, I think the only remaining thing alive are pine squirrels. As far as game- it doesn't matter since they left before thanksgiving.

Winter range- south slopes and valley bottoms roughly 1500-2000 ft below where I live. I drove to town a couple of days ago and there was 100 head of elk bedded in the sunshine on a bare south slope with good grass. The creek bottoms had about 1ft of snow and the main valley floor (mostly ranches) were bare to patchy snow.

I have never seen any maps that defined critical winter range for planning purposes or reward programs for land holders to maintain it for that use.

In my country the distance between summer range and winter range is 10-35 miles dependant on the severity of the winter.

Our deer are gone and have been since the early 90s. It wasn't winter that killed them. They still give out 50 doe tags. Last year over 30+ days in the field on horseback, I saw 6 deer. Four were fawns. One was shot while I watched . I don't think that is management.

Some areas have no shelter for the animals (prarie country) and during a bad winter there will be some horrifying results. I've seen some areas where the deer yarded up during a bad winter and you find 30-50 deer skeletons in a creek bottom - together.

I guess I would like to see maps of designated critical winter habitat because that would tell the bios got out of the office. I would also like to see reports of wintering fatalities come spring. If nothing else it would tell me where not to go that fall.

 

[Laramie]

Currently all over rokslide there are threads discussing severe winterkill of elk , antelope and mule deer across the western us . A fair number of these states have draws and lotteries taking place resident and non resident . If it is as bad as it sounds and doing whats best for the big game populations being decimated . What do you think states SHOULD do to preserve game vs what they WILL do ? Obviously tag sales generate substantial revenue . What say you ?

Not going to happen but I believe states should do whatever is necessary to set accurate quotas, based only on herd health, on a yearly basis. For instance, this year the state of Wyoming should push back their application period by 30 days to allow biologists time to understand the true impacts of the winter. The snow will not be melted enough to know true winter kill numbers before the meetings on the 17th and 18th. Instead, they will make educated guesses based on how many of their collared animals have died or based on very incomplete population assessments created form a variety of sources. The biologists want to set accurate quotas and do the right thing but their hands are tied in many ways. They don't even know how many animals are even harvested in that state. This isn't a problem exclusive to Wyoming but it is a glaring problem there right now.

 

[trazerr]

Most of the west has been pounded this year. However, I heard a lot of the winter range in OR at least is looking alright. Its the hills/mountains around them is where most of the snow is. Hopefully that is the case for other states, but it doesnt sound like it for some.