Where have all the mulies gone? | Great Falls Tribune

By Michael Babcock

The mule deer — the signature deer of the West — is in trouble in Montana and Fish, Wildlife & Parks is cutting back on hunter opportunity to halt a slide in the deer's numbers that began a couple of years ago.

The decline in the number of fawns each year is cyclical, however, and game managers expect the deer herds to come back in three or four years.

Biologists blame a decade or more of drought and untimely winter-like storms that occurred in spring of 2009. Coyotes and mountain lions also kill mule deer but when deer numbers are down, that impacts the number of predators as well.

In northcentral Montana and several other FWP administrative regions, biologists this year are suggesting heavy restrictions on mule deer harvest for the next two years. In Region 4, for example all general deer A licenses will be for antlered mule deer only or either sex whitetails. Other restrictions are recommended in Regions 1, 2 and 3.

Fish, Wildlife & Parks Commissioners will adopt final hunting regulations when they meet in Helena on Feb. 11. They will not set quotas until sometime in the summer. That allows biologists to complete their winter and spring deer and elk surveys.

While the decline is just about region wide for northcentral Montana, Quentin Kujala, head of the wildlife bureau for Fish, Wildlife & Parks says the problem goes beyond Region 4.

“We are hearing the same comments from regions 1, 2 and 3,” he said.

“All four had responding adjustments in tentatives this year toward a more conservative antlerless harvest,” he said. “In the comments we have received people are appreciating those moves and in some cases calling for more conservative moves.

“In eastern Montana Region 5, we have made some adjustments but as a region the problem is not as widespread as regions 1 through 4. In the far eastern regions (Regions 6 and 7) the message is a little more scattered.

“But it certainly is on a bigger scale than only one region,” Kujala said.

Tom Stivers, a FWP biologist in Lewistown, said mule deer numbers are down in virtually all of central Montana and south of the Snowy Mountains, too.

FWP game managers noticed the decline a year ago and they began cutting back on the number of B tags — tags reserved for antlerless deer. Hunters began complaining last fall that they failed to get a B tag in areas where they have gotten them for years.

Before that, FWP was generous with B tags and there were a number of hunting districts where surplus B tags — those not taken during the application process in the spring — were sold over the counter.

“Did we go too far with B tags?” Kujala said. “One of the greatest challenges in wildlife management when it comes to mule deer is when you couple the ebbs and flows in a dynamic system.

“Everybody has a different perception of where populations are and then there are season structures and the inherent timeline of season setting. The challenge is trying to match harvest opportunity with the situation.”

Kujala said there clearly are cycles in the mule deer populations and he said 10 to 15 years would be a good generalization.

“We can talk at great length of how to think about cycles. They are intrinsic with mule deer and how they respond to things like the weather or how they impact their environment,” he said. “But is easiest just to recognize that there is an event when you look back you can see the ebb and flow.

“Anyway you look at it the system has a potential to be just behind the curve,” Kujala said. “Increased liberalization might be behind the curve and the same with conservatism. By the time you match the population that might be the population that was there last year.”

Stivers said that mule deer numbers were high in the hunting districts he manages two and three years ago.

“But fawn recruitment dropped off and that is a sign that things are going to happen,” he said. “We still had good numbers of deer in all those places and we were in a biennial season setting structure so you cannot go to bucks only except every two years.”

“There still are deer out there and some hunting districts are in better shape than others,” Stivers said.

“I don’t think this trough is going to be as pronounced as that one in the mid-90s,” he said.

“Region 4 and some others have taken some late snows and there have been extreme conditions when the fawns hit the ground,” Kujala said. “Then there is the drought. Even though we have had better summer moisture the last few years, in some regions the drought has hung on. That shows up in fawn mortality and late in the fall. There have been more than enough weather events to impact fawns.”

“Region 1 (northwest Montana) has been talking about winter conditions and Region 6 had a lot of winter weather last year. The mule deer population is manifesting that dip.

There also are predators.

“That always is a question,” Kujala said. “Classical theory tells you that prey drive the predators. At low levels, predators can impact the lows, dragging them out.”

“Lots of things add up to this,” Stivers said. “And this also is in line with the reduction in numbers that occurs every 10 to 12 years.

“Dry summers effect lactation and fawn survival,” Stivers said.

He explained that mule deer eat forbs or browse and are more sensitive to dry summers.

Elk can shift from forbs or browse to grass in winter but mule deer cannot.

“The mule deer are left with nothing. Oftentimes there are two years like that back to back and you get low fawn recruitment,” he said.

“It is cumulative wear on females and fawn recruitment drops. Dry summers are often followed by slightly worse than normal winter affects.

“Coyote numbers also are high right now,” he said.

Neither Kujala nor Stivers would point at one factor or another as having been the driving force behind the decline.

Stivers said, “People overlook the significance but the No. 1 thing that drives mule deer population is how green the summers are.

“The real thing that drives mule deer and antelope are forbs — the broad-leafed plants such as dandelions, clover, all the milky sap plants. There are lots of small broadleaf plants in the understory of the prairie.”

“At this point in time, the sense would be to see it more as a mule deer thing than a trouble thing,” Kujala said.

Reach Babcock at triboutdoors@greatfallstribune.com or by calling 791-1487.

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