Winter so far has been mild but is it enough for Deer and Antelope? Wyoming Game and Fish has the answers

JACKSON, WYOMING (KIFI)- It is the tale of two winters. Winter of 22-23 was filled with lots of snow and cold temperatures, which was a big hamper, to the big game in the Jackson Wyoming area. The winter was especially hard on the Deer and Antelope herds in the region as their winter grounds were filled with a ton of snow as well.

Mark Gocke the Public Information Officer for Wyoming Game and Fish shares, that it led to a good harvest for hunters last year.

"That brought our population estimate for the Jackson Elk Herd to just below the population objective, which is 11,000. So we were just under that last fall after the hunting season," Gocke said.

He says the elk have been slower this year to migrate to the National Elk Refuge as much of their forage is still available for them in the high elevations, Gocke says a couple of hundred head of elk have gone to the refuge but they usually have a much high headcount by now.

"Normally this time of year we'd be looking at several thousand elk out there," Gocke said.

Big game species like Elk and Moose, are better able to handle winters like what we saw last year. However, Pronghorns and Deer aren't built for that kind of winter and struggle to make it.

"We don't winter many mule deer here in Jackson Hole and rarely, do we winter or any pronghorn, and even when they did decide to try and stay here for the winter they typically don't make it they're just not deep snow animals and so they migrate to the southeast down towards Pinedale and Big Piney. Last year they had a lot of snow and we suffered significant losses, probably the most I've ever seen in my 30 years here in western Wyoming," Gocke said.

He says that Western Wyoming lost probably half of the pronghorn and mule deer herds due to the extreme winter.

However, the half of the herd that did survive, the does didn't give birth to new fawns.

"A lot of times people forget that not only do we lose the animals down from that last winter, but the does that did survive winter, come out of winter in such poor shape that they often don't reproduce, or if they do, the fawns doesn't make it. And so we lost an entire fawn crop, from two years basically in a row on those populations of deer and pronghorn," Gocke said.

He says for the herds to bounce back they need milder winters with lots of good forage, which for now they have, but one mild year won't be enough Gocke says.

"We lost, such a significant portion of those Pronghorn and mule deer herds, that it's going to take several years for them to rebound. But, this is a good start. It's just what we needed, a little bit milder winter. And if we could get some moisture again next spring because we've been in a long extended drought here in western Wyoming in this area, and that just doesn't produce the forage that they need to raise those fawns," Gocke said.

He says a middle ground would be snow in the higher elevations and less in the lower elevations as it would still help the animals recover.