Lack of Deer

It has been a while since I made a post.  Well hopefully I can start doing them on a regular basis.  This blog is going to be about the deer numbers in North Dakota.  Last weekend Dusty, John and I all went back to the badlands to do some deer hunting. Dusty and John have whitetail buck tags.  I have a mule deer buck tag. We started off a little late on Friday.  We finally got to our spots.  Dusty and John sat together in the river bottoms and then Justin and I went into the hills.  We didn't see anything and Dusty and John saw 3 does.  That seemed to be the theme for the weekend.  Hardly saw any deer.

So what is causing these low numbers?  Well I believe there are 3 factors.

1. Mother Nature--The last few winters have been absolutely crazy.  In 2009, ND had 85.4 inches of snow.  2010 wasn't quite as much, 70.3.  Those are the 3rd and 4th most in the history of North Dakota. (http://www.kxnet.com/getArticle.asp?ArticleId=699536) With that much snow it is hard for the deer to find food.  Then the spring will be wet from all the snow and make even tougher when they give birth.

2. Moutain Lions--North Dakota has never had this many mountain lions.  I don't know how many are out there but you use to never get a picture of a mountain lion on a trail camera.  These days you get numerous and not just one cat in a picture many cats.  They say that a mountain lion can take down 1 deer a week.  That is outrageous!!  So one grown mountain lion eats 52 deer a year.  1 CAT EATS 52 A YEAR!  So far this year there have been 9 cats killed in North Dakota's Badlands.  Just those 9 cats had the potential of killing 468 deer this year.  I had a buddy that went out hunting in the badlands and he said that he saw 4 mountain lions in a 3 mile radius.  He saw more mountain lions than deer.  There are so many cats in the Badlands that they are now moving to eastern North Dakota.  They spotted a few south of Devils Lake.  A lot of mountain lions out there eating deer.

3.  Traffic--This one is mainly for western North Dakota.  With the oil traffic in western North Dakota there have been numerous deer/vehicle collisions.  I tried to find numbers for this but us unsuccessful.  Some oil trucks speed up to hit animals on the road.  I have a friend that saw a group of antelope on the highway.  He then looked down the road and saw an oil truck coming towards them.  That trucker actually speed up to hit them.  I was told it looked like a bowling alley, antelope flying everywhere.  This makes me sick.  Yes, a lot of them are accidents, though there those young drivers that think it is cool to hit animals with their semi-truck.  They think why not it won't hurt the truck.  Makes me sick!  I do my best not to hit a pheasant.

This is just what I think has contributed to the low deer numbers.  I have seen first hand how low these numbers are.  I love walking the Badlands!! I hate walking them and not seeing anything!

Thanks for ready our blog.  Give any feedback that you would like.

Vaughn M. Anderson
Rough Creek Proudctions