Harsh winter for wildlife

Freezing temperatures, little to eat and snow-filled storms have been a challenge for Crook County’s wildlife over the winter, but Game Warden Chris Teter says things could have been much worse. Heading into spring, he sees relatively few upcoming challenges aside from the presence of chronic wasting disease (CWD) and a possible slow start to turkey season.

“We’ve actually fared pretty well, I think. Certainly we have lost some antelope, particularly on the west side of the county, and I think there has been a fair number of deer fawn mortalities this winter, but it could be worse for sure,” Teter assures.

“It was kind of a rough winter, overall, but I think we’ll be ok.”

Over the past few weeks, antelope have been spotted within city limits over in Moorcroft, driven to populated areas in search of sources of food, a number of which have since perished. The Moorcroft Town Council last week estimated upwards of 17 carcasses have been removed. Deer fawns have also suffered from the winter, says Teter.

“The cold was certainly the worst part of it but it seemed to me like we had more wind than normal and certainly snow conditions in some places have limited their ability to find something to eat,” he says.

“This last storm I don’t think was significant [in terms of mortality]. It was actually a short time period and I’m thankful we didn’t get rain with that and it didn’t turn cold. I think it was certainly a bad day or two there, but it could have been a lot worse than it was.”

However, now the weather has begun to warm, things are looking up for local wildlife.

“I’m sure that there will be a little more die-off but it shouldn’t be significant unless we get a whopper of a storm here,” he says. Of spring births, he adds, “It’s too early to say for sure, but I think we’ll keep our fingers crossed.”

Chronic waste disease has been an increasing issue across the state and, according to Teter, Crook County has not escaped its reach.

“We made a pretty good effort last fall sampling deer and the bad news is that we have discovered our prevalence rate is higher than what we thought. Of course, that’s just one year of data,” he says.

“There seemed to be a hot area west of town in area three, we found a fair number of positive deer out there. That’s really the big concern disease-wise for right now.”

At the present time, he says, there is very little that can be done to prevent the spread of CWD. Game & Fish has a lot left to learn about the disease first.

“We don’t even really know how that disease gets spread specifically – there are a lot of theories but there’s a lot of research to be done on Chronic Waste Disease for right now,” Teter says.

“The biologists are shifting their emphasis on testing around the state so I don’t think in this upcoming season there will be as much effort put forth on that front in our area, but it will certainly be something we are looking out for and we will still be testing, but it won’t be to the degree it was last fall.”

Teter also warns that there could be a slightly later start to turkey season this year in some areas of the county. This will be due to access problems caused by the snow.

“The opening date is April 13, the second Saturday in April,” he says. “The season will still open on that day, it’s just going to be a matter of getting in to some of those places. The snow is going to limit people’s ability to get in where they might expect to.”