Shrinking Deer population in the West

[cnelk]

An interesting article.
But it makes no mention of the thousands of deer that were slaughtered by the DOW due to the CWD scare/research a few years ago.
[Which was funded by a grant and when the grant $$ ran out so did the research]

There are areas that still havent recovered from that mistake

<!-- m --><a class=\"postlink\" href=\"http://www.foxnews.com/us/2014/07/15/deer-population-rapidly-declining-in-colorado-other-parts-west/\" onclick=\"window.open(this.href);return false;\">http://www.foxnews.com/us/2014/07/15/de ... arts-west/</a><!-- m -->

 

[OldMan]

That\'s terrible. The DOW keeps on selling deer tags like nothing is wrong. 614,000 deer in 2005, and 390,000 now? That\'s ridiculous.

I won\'t be hunting for deer anymore. I know it won\'t affect anything, but it makes me feel better.

 

[Bullrub]

I just get sick and tried of these people that don\'t tell the whole story. CWD was a big deal for that area and still is in some parts. Why don\'t they just say that part of the biggest decline in population was because of the thousand\'s that were killed because of the CWD testing. Instead of blaming it on everything else to cover there butts.
In my area of Oregon it is wolfs and cougars that are causing most of the decline in population. Because we have not any bad winters for 3 to 4 years and the mule deer are still going down in population. I don\'t think fish and game mange game as much as they mange people anymore, but there the one\'s stuck in the middle of it all and there hands are tied.

 

[cohunter14]

While I know there are people at the CPW that are smarter than me, one thing I think they are missing is that a lot of deer are relocating to the flatlands. The deer population in and around the Denver metro area is increasing like crazy. In the last few years, there is noticably more and more deer. I have to think they are missing some of these when taking their population estimates. While the deer may not be as populated in the mountain areas, the population has to be up down here.

My concern is that this might eventually happen with elk. More and more elk are making their way to the flatlands and I hope it doesn\'t become an overwhelming trend. It is almost impossible to hunt them once they come down, so there is no way to control the population.

Just my thoughts...

 

[Deertick]

Well, over-hunting in SE WY hasn\'t been an issue ... but CWD incidence has increased, and the age structure of the deer is way young. There are signs that some deer are \"resistant\" to CWD here, but the resistance needs to become much more common. CWD is a mystery for sure, and there have been mistakes in how it has been handled, but don\'t discount it as a factor. If current population trends in this corner of the state don\'t turn around, with or without hunting, mule deer will be gone from this area completely in something like 20 years. (Now, that likely won\'t happen ... resistance will likely have some preservation effects.)