April 5, 2023 |
Photo – Mule Deer – Bigfoot99 file photo
A “catastrophic winter” has taken a devastating toll on Carbon County’s wildlife, State Senator Larry Hicks told Wyoming Governor Mark Gordon and other attending a virtual meeting Tuesday evening.
Hicks said snow came early and they came big. Winter still has not given up and melting has not begun even at lower elevations, the state senator from Baggs said.
Winter is not giving up, Hicks said. Snowpack is still going up and not melting out. As a result, crucial winter range for big game animals, in a belt of elevations either side of 6,000 feet, have been impacted. Hicks described it as a “catastrophic winter.”
Hicks used a series of pictures, he took in the Baggs area two weeks ago, to document the devastating impact the winter had on the county’s pronghorn population.
A dozen or more pronghorn of various ages and at least one mule deer was shown in the devastating scenes Hicks recorded with a video camera.
Hicks said Carbon County has endured bad winters in the past, but this year has been “catastrophic.”
Carbon County Commissioner John Espy, who ranches on both sides of the Continental Divide southwest of Rawlins, asked both Governor Gordon and Wyoming Game and Fish Director Brian Nesvik to curtail hunting this season.
The game and fish director described the impacts on pronghorn and mule deer in the Little Snake River region as “devastating.” Nesvik said the Platte Valley fared somewhat better.
Nesvik said winter mortality in the Shirley Basin also has been above normal.
The Game and Fish chief said that the agency is continuing to evaluate the upcoming hunting seasons. No decisions have been made, yet. Nesvik said Game and Fish may even change quotas later in the year as more information from the winter kill is collected and improved assessments of populations are made.
Nesvik said this has been “a winter like most of us haven’t seen.” He added that the agency has the ability to employ emergency regulations, as more information comes in over the next several months, to adjust hunting seasons as needed. Nesvik said the agency will continue to evaluate impacts as biologists and others are able to better collect and evaluate the impacts of this year’s long and heavy winter.
Yesterday’s meeting will be posted online to the governor’s website sometime today.
