Cooperative Fish and Wildlife Research Units Program: Wyoming
Education, Research and Technical Assistance for Managing Our Natural Resources

The number of mule deer that winter on the Pinedale Anticline Project Area (PAPA) has declined in the past decade, coincident with general declines of mule deer observed throughout much of the West. It has been challenging for wildlife managers to disentangle the multitude of factors that have potentially contributed to reduced productivity, survival, and overall abundance of PAPA deer. Proposed factors include drought, altered plant phenology, winter severity, and altered habitat conditions associated with development activity. Our objective is to evaluate the relative contributions of environmental (e.g. drought, disturbance, winter severity) and intrinsic (e.g. age, recruitment status) influences on nutritional condition, reproduction, and survival of mule deer that winter in the PAPA.