Make our newscast part of your daily listening routine. Subscribe on Spotify (or wherever you listen to podcasts).
A warmer fall may have kept some hunters out of the field.
But Wyoming Game and Fish Jackson Regional Supervisor Brad Hovinga said preliminary surveys show that those Jackson-area hunters who did get out are happy with harvests this fall.
“We had a really good hunting season for the number of deer that we had,” Hovinga said.
Hunting is one of the top tools game managers use to keep species like deer and elk healthy throughout the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem.
Deer counts are rebounding. There are still fewer mule deer on the landscape following the 2022-2023 winter that killed more than half the population in the nearby Wyoming Range.
“Most people are well aware that our deer populations are lower than they’ve been in a long time,” Hovinga said, “but honestly, our deer are healthier than they’ve been in a long time.”
That’s because they have plenty of habitat and forage they don’t have to compete for, he said.
As for elk, population numbers are on target, though still threatened by Chronic Wasting Disease. The fatal prion disease was detected at higher rates than expected last winter.
“This winter will tell us a lot about what CWD is doing in our elk population,” Hovinga said, “But at this point, I’m certainly not willing to speculate on what we think may happen this year.”
Game and Fish expects official harvest numbers in early February.
