Who's Doing Private Land Muley Habitat Work?

[teamsprock]

The cover for the mule deer is a mixed bag of timber, shrubs and cliffs.

 

[Bull_n_heat]

Wyoming Game and Fish has done (and is planning more) a bunch of work on private lands across the state for deer. It's mostly brush mowings and riparian/river enhancements related to winter and/or transitional ranges, but stuff going into the ground for sure. If you dig around, you can find a Rokcast where a couple fellas from the outfit are talking about that.

Perhaps a little less work in WY where folks are targeting more "resident" deer, but plenty of approaches potentially available to landowners that wanted to pursue that, and lots of chances to get technical or financial assistance to do so.

 

[Rich M]

I think the point you hit on with ag fields is where private lands managers are falling short. There are big private ag fields in Wyoming I am glassing that don't have crap for bedding nearby - it's irrigated in the sage brush with no places for them to hide. Seeing low to no deer numbers on ag fields where there is zero hunting pressure is one of the driving forces behind this question.

Will they let you plant? There are some grasses that will provide bedding cover and not go nuts & take over landscape.

Flip side is you could plant brush/bushes that will also provide some kind of browse.

I shot my only muley off a crop field. Area was flat as a pancake griddle. Adjacent to blm land w grasses and brush. Not sure where this bunch of 20 or so deer bedded but they came in from a diff direction ever evening and always fled the same way across blm to public.

 

[Jaden Bales]

Will they let you plant? There are some grasses that will provide bedding cover and not go nuts & take over landscape.

Flip side is you could plant brush/bushes that will also provide some kind of browse.

I shot my only muley off a crop field. Area was flat as a pancake griddle. Adjacent to blm land w grasses and brush. Not sure where this bunch of 20 or so deer bedded but they came in from a diff direction ever evening and always fled the same way across blm to public.

Not sure how easy it is to get private landowners on board but I am leading up a project to replant bitterbrush with the BLM and a couple of conservation groups (Wyoming Wildlife Federation and Muley Fanatics) near my hometown of Lander because something wiped out a couple thousand acres of it about 5 years ago.

Toughest part of these projects is it's a 5-10 year time horizon before you ever see any results. Probably 10-20 years before you see a deer herd benefit. And that's just to keep what we have.