Tips and Tactics: How to Hunt Mule Deer (Part 2)
Taken as an entire population, mule deer numbers are on a long, slow downward slide around the West. Some classic big-buck zones, such as the aspen-and-sagebrush ridges that fall away from Yellowstone National Park, have seen sharp declines. In areas with irrigated, succulent agricultural forage, the slumps have been shallower.
There’s no consensus on the cause of the declines. A wildlife biologist in Montana once told me that he’s documented 50 years of boom-and- bust population dynamics on a roughly 10-year cycle. Within each decade, you can expect a few lean years followed by a population rebound. The thing is, over the last 40 years, the booms have been shallower, and the busts steeper.
Some biologists think our resurgent elk population is to blame, outcompeting muleys in shared habitat. Others suspect a slow change in forage as the West warms. Still others blame the combination of wildfire suppression and energy development. Human development in the foothills of the mountainous West have undoubtedly fractured critical winter range and contributed to mule deer mortality in deep-snow winters.
Whatever the cause, the overall decline has made an ancient, white-muzzled buck an even scarcer trophy for Western deer hunters.
