Outfitters and trophy-minded deer hunters have convinced Wyoming wildlife officials to retain tight antler point rules that biologists say are likely to reduce the future number of big bucks in two crown-jewel mule deer herds.
“There’s a false notion out there that [antler point restrictions] are going to create more big bucks on the landscape,” said Brandon Scurlock, wildlife management coordinator for Wyoming Game and Fish Department’s Pinedale Region. “They’re just not.”
“It actually can be detrimental to the number of older-age bucks in the population, because that’s the only thing people can harvest,” he told WyoFile.
Ratios of mature bucks in a herd tend to decline when the restrictions are sustained long term, Scurlock said. Wyoming biologists have documented the effect over time in at least one white paper — and even an analysis specific to the Wyoming Range.
That’s one of the two herds where the restrictions are being retained despite wildlife managers’ recommendation that doing the opposite would better accomplish advocates’ goals. The Sublette Mule Deer Herd is the other.
The restriction at issue — a regulation limiting hunter harvest to only bucks with at least four points on either antler — was put in place following the devastating 2022-23 winter, which reduced the Wyoming Range Mule Deer Herd by nearly 70%. After documenting signs of recovery, Game and Fish proposed lifting the tighter regulations, extending the season by four days and allowing hunters to kill any antlered deer, including yearlings. They also proposed adding 50 nonresident hunting licenses to one Wyoming Range hunt area.
On Wednesday, however, the Wyoming Game and Fish Commission largely rejected that proposal after a nearly three hour discussion. At the urging of outfitters and a state lawmaker, the body opted instead to extend the hunting season by only two days and keep the antler rules in place.
“There’s great concern about liberalizing hunting too soon,” Rep. McKay Erickson, an Afton Republican, testified to commissioners. “I would beg you to consider going a few more years before we make these steps.”
Tedd Jenkins, a big game outfitter out of Thayne, echoed the concerns. “I think it’s way too early,” Jenkins told commissioners. “We’re not even knocking on the door of 50% of our objective, according to the numbers.”
Game and Fish biologists hold that expanded buck hunting opportunities have no influence on the pace of the Wyoming Range Herd’s recovery. Population trajectories are driven, instead, by the reproduction and survival rates of does and fawns.
“Frankly, none of our season proposals affect population growth and management towards recovery,” Game and Fish Jackson Region Wildlife Coordinator Cheyenne Stewart told commissioners.
Antler point restrictions can temporarily increase buck ratios when they’re kept in place for “two to three years,” Scurlock said. “After that,” he said, “you’re just focusing on all your harvest pressure on older-age animals.”
There’s another drawback, he said. Poaching tends to increase as hunters mistakenly shoot undersized deer then leave them to avoid prosecution. The Utah Division of Wildlife stopped using the restrictions after documenting 35% of deer were being killed illegally, according to the Wyoming Game and Fish white paper.
Among Wyoming Game and Fish commissioners, Kemmerer resident Ken Roberts was the most vocal proponent of retaining the antler restrictions. Overriding the Game and Fish proposal was a “tough, tough call,” he told WyoFile, and acknowledged that the science did not clearly support keeping the restrictions in place.
“There’s a very good case that it could backfire,” Roberts told WyoFile.
Other hunters urged commissioners to go with Game and Fish’s science-based recommendation.
Jason West, the president of the Wyoming Mule Deer Alliance, cited Game and Fish data showing that it can be counterproductive to keep the restrictions in place for more than three years.
Writing in a comment letter, Cora resident Braxton Hamilton made the same point and also noted a benefit.
“Removing this regulation would create more opportunity for hunters, especially youth and those with less experience, without negatively impacting the overall quality of bucks,” Hamilton wrote.
Although they didn’t vocally lobby the commission, Scurlock’s hunch is that most rank-and-file mule deer hunters supported the loosened regulations the agency proposed.
“I think that’s the silent majority,” he said.
Because Game and Fish mirrors regulations across 14 western Wyoming hunt areas, the antler restriction and shorter season length were also retained for the Sublette Mule Deer Herd. That herd’s estimated population, nearly 22,500 deer, now exceeds the estimates from before the deadly 2022-23 winter.
