F&G Tracks Collared Deer For Winter Populations

Idaho Fish and Game said this year’s mild winter is helping beef up the local deer population that took a hit from last year’s storms.

The survival of those female deer has been pretty high this year, and a lot of it does have to do with the lack of snow. Wildlife technician Cindy Austin took this reporter out to see if we could find any white tails out in Wednesday’s white snow.

Austin and I hiked up the closed road through Blackrock Canyon as we start our hunt for the doe. She pulled out her radio and antennae — she used the omni-directional one on top of her truck to find the general area of the deer — and then hones in on it with a handheld one.

“And then once we narrow it down to which drainage it might be in, then this antennae is the one that will give me more direction, and it’s one that I can use to you know, hike right into the deer,” Austin said.

Austin has been tracking deer for seven years, so she knew Blackrock was a good place to go — and she was right. The consistent beeping from her radio meant a collared deer was close.

“So since we know we’re in the right drainage, I’ll probably turn it down until I can barely hear it. And then turn it down further,” Austin said, adjusting the gain on her radio to clear out the background noise.

Hugged the whole way around by the thick, snowy fog settled in the valley, it felt like it was just Austin, me and this doe, beeping at us from a place that was just out of sight. And there was Hank, too. Austin is still out tracking in the cold, even though she is seven months pregnant.

The three of us still couldn’t manage to find the deer.

“Well it’s still pointing that way,” Austin said, confirming her original idea of where the deer was.

But all we found was a deer hide. Austin thought it was shot by a hunter and dragged down the hillside by another animal.

We decided to try the Port of Entry for some better luck, but came up empty again. Still, Austin left with an idea of where the deer are, and that is the most important thing.

“It just makes us a better advocate for the deer. Like, if there’s some sort of development going on or a road or anything like that, then we have more data to support our claims that that’s an important habitat to protect,” she said.

Even though Fish and Game follows the deer, it’s important for regular citizens not to bother them as the animals rebuild their population this winter, Austin said.

Idaho Fish and Game collared more than 200 deer in the entire state this year.