Deer numbers up, elk numbers down
White-tailed deer and mule deer harvest finished slightly ahead last year’s totals at Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks’ six Northwest Montana check stations as the season wrapped up Sunday, Nov. 25.
A total of 17,635 hunters checked 941 white-tailed deer, of which 830 were bucks, 131 mule deer and 78 elk for a 6.5 percent rate of hunters with game. The success rate was 6.1 percent last year, but the number of hunters was down 5 percent.
The counts at the six check stations represent a sampling of the harvest and do not represent the complete number of animals taken. Details of total harvest for each hunting district will be known after telephone hunter surveys are completed this spring.
Hunters this year checked 10 percent more whitetail bucks and 27 percent more mule deer but 36 percent fewer elk compared to last year. The lower elk numbers could be partly due to the lack of a youth antlerless opportunity this season.
The number of hunters in the North Fork declined 17 percent from 2011 to 1,085 hunters while the success rate increased slightly from 3 percent to 3.2 percent. That was the lowest success rate among the six stations. The check stations with the highest rates were the Swan and Thompson Falls sites, both with 8 percent, followed by Olney at 7.9 percent.
Deer populations are still down overall, according to FWP wildlife manager Jim Williams, but there are signs that whitetail numbers are beginning to increase. A high number of yearling whitetail bucks were checked this season, he said, which reflects good fawn survival last winter.
Forty-eight percent of the whitetail bucks checked at Olney and 35 percent checked at the U.S. 2 station west of Kalispell were yearlings. Trophy bucks five years and older were also well represented, making up 12 percent of the bucks at the U.S. 2 and Swan stations. Annual buck harvest is a reliable indicator of population trend, Williams said.
“Based on the total number of whitetail bucks at our check stations, deer populations are up slightly as compared to last year in Northwest Montana,” he said. “The number of yearling whitetail bucks in the harvest is what we expected to see based on our spring fawn survival counts, and it’s good news for hunters in the coming years.”
Through Nov. 25, hunters in Northwest Montana harvested 27 wolves. Statewide, 80 have been taken. The wolf hunting season will continue until Feb. 28. Hunters can still purchase a wolf hunting license, but there’s a five-day waiting period before it’s valid. The wolf trapping season will begin Dec. 15. Wolf trappers must purchase a furbearer trapping license to trap wolves.