Local hunting seasons to be reduced

Wildlife managers are proposing adjustments to the Wyoming Game & Fish Department’s hunting season proposals throughout the state.

More modifications have been made since the department presented its season proposals during public meetings around the state in March.

Since that time, the ongoing impacts of winter and overwhelming public concern led wildlife managers to reexamine their recommendations.

In Crook County, however, a reduction to both the length of the season and the number of available licenses has been proposed due to concerns over the impacts of disease and low birth rates.

“In the Black Hills, our deer numbers, as everybody knows, are low. But contrary to the rest of the state, it appears that we made it out of winter alright,” says Nate Holst, Sundance Game Warden.

“I’m not seeing a whole lot of winter die-off here.”

However, the past two summers have seen a serious outbreak of epizootic hemorrhagic disease (EHD), he says.

“It’s essentially just like blue tongue, just a different strand. They’re both caused by biting gnats,” he says.

“You tend to see a little higher EHD outbreaks when you have a wet spring and a dry summer because the biting gnats hatch in mud, which is why you often find dead deer around water. One, that’s where they’re contracting it, and two, a lot of times they’re trying to cool themselves off.”

While EHD can also affect antelope, Holst did not receive any reports of it over the last summer. However, he says, the eastern side of Wyoming is experiencing a decline in numbers in both deer and antelope at this time.

“We’re not seeing the fawn crop, for some reason,” he says. “They’re just not reproducing enough to replace the population.”

Though chronic wasting disease (CWD) is present in the county and has increased from about 3% prevalence a decade ago to 6-7% now (with an estimated 14% prevalence in the Sundance area), it did not drive the decision to reduce the season.

The new changes were presented to the Wyoming Game & Fish Commission in Casper on April 18 and could significantly impact deer hunting within Crook County.

“What we’re proposing is the general deer season in the Black Hills – region A, which is areas 1 through 6 – that rifle season be November 1 through November 15, which is the shortest season in the 11 years since I’ve lived here,” Holst says.

“The reason we’re doing this is that the Black Hills is a general area and the days hunted is the only way we can kind of restrict our resident hunters.”

Non-resident general licenses have also been cut back to 2000.

A number of reduced-price licenses have been removed from the quota for both white-tailed deer and antelope.

Quotas for type 8 additional licenses for doe or fawn white-tailed deer on private land within Hunt Areas 1-3, which together cover the area of the county north of the interstate, have been reduced to 250.

The quota for type 8 licenses for doe or fawn white-tailed deer on private land in Hunt Area 4, to the southeast of the county, has been reduced from 75 to 25.

The changes also include the removal of type 6 additional doe or fawn antelope licenses from Hunt Area 2, located to the northeast of the county. A quota of 100 licenses had originally been planned for this area.

In Hunt Area 5, which is partially located to the southeast of Crook County, a planned 75 type 7 additional licenses for doe or fawn antelope on private land have also been removed.