Habitat
Whether you are hunting early or late season burn areas are a great place to notch your tag this season. Wildfire is one of the West’s most powerful forces. Fires are destructive, unpredictable, and often misunderstood. To the untrained eye, a burn scar looks like devastation. But to a mule deer, it can look like opportunity. In the years after a wildfire, the landscape transforms into a mosaic of nutrient-rich regrowth, young shrubs, and open feeding grounds, all prime habitat for mule deer recovery and herd growth.
A Mule Deer Foundation project brings new growth to struggling aspen stands that serve as crucial transitional range for Wyoming’s Platte Valley mule deer herd.
I am an avid outdoorsman and conservationist who grew up in the Black Hills of South Dakota. This region and our way of life instilled in me a deep appreciation and passion for wildlife and wild places. I consider myself fortunate to work, recreate, and raise a family along the boundary of the American West and the Great Plains. Whether I’m managing a habitat project, fighting fires with the local VFD, or pursuing big game, I’m driven by a desire to leave things better than I found them—ensuring that my daughter and future generations can enjoy the same opportunities and landscapes that I have.
Working within local communities like Burney, California allows the Mule Deer Foundation and USDA Forest Service to accomplish active forest management projects.
Local partners and volunteers contributed to a very successful fence removal project along a big game migration corridor in Arizona.
On the dry ridges outside Tucson, AZ hunters know that a year of poor rainfall can turn a once familiar hunting ground into an unfamiliar puzzle. Traditional glassing spots may come up empty, and the basins that normally hold deer can feel barren. But those who adjust their strategy now hyper focusing on scarce water sources, higher elevation forage, and subtle changes in deer movement can still find success even in tough years.
Removing extra trees and vegetation can create healthier forests that provide better habitat for wildlife like mule deer and help prevent catastrophic wildfires.
That’s where the Mule Deer Foundation (MDF) comes in. You might know the name. You might have gone to a banquet, read the magazine, or thrown a few bucks in the raffle. But what you might not know is just how much MDF does every single day to protect the deer, the ground they walk on, and the hunting lifestyle we live for.
If you want to understand the pressure mule deer are under these days, don’t look to the Rockies or the high sage basins of Montana — head straight into the heart of the Great Basin. This sprawling region covers much of Nevada and western Utah, and while it may look vast and empty, for mule deer it’s ground zero for one of the most dramatic population declines in the West.
Following the WAFWA (Western Association of Fish and Wildlife Associations) conference here’s what we know about mule deer and black-tailed deer populations.
Every hunter who purchases a license or tag plays a part in conserving mule deer. Conservation tags, and the revenue they generate, are the lifeblood of state wildlife agencies and the foundation of mule deer management across the West.
There’s a moment every mule deer hunter lives for. You’re glassing a far ridgeline, the sun just tipping over the peaks, and you catch movement. A buck. Big-bodied, ears alert, antlers catching light. But the question starts burning right away: How big is he? And more importantly — is he the one?