Deer population is low, but some research will help

The general rifle seasons for Washington deer will begin on Oct. 17, with some of the better opportunities to be found in the east side Game Management Units (GMU) of WDFW’s Region 5. Still, deer numbers are down in some of these units. West Klickitat (578), Grayback (388), and East Klickitat units (382), offer country that is more open than in western Washington, where the public lands are dominated by closed canopy forests that offer poor browse for deer. The blacktail population there is depressed, and there is little quality access for hunters. However, just as the case in the western units of Washington’s Region 5, hunter access is an issue here, too. Public access can be difficult, especially in the Grayback Unit, where only about 11 percent of the unit is public access, and most of that is within the Klickitat Wildlife Area Soda Springs Unit which is roughly 13,000-acres. This wildlife area can see heavy hunting pressure, especially on the opening weekend. Grayback is considered a mule deer unit. The bulk of the East Klickitat Unit, also mule deer habitat, is arid scrubland with a small bit of irrigated farmland along the eastern boundary. There is a small amount of forest along Interstate 97. By percentage this GMU is almost all private land, but there are many small patches of Bureau of Land Management (BLM), and Washington Department of Natural Resources (DNR) state lands available. The West Klickitat Unit is considered blacktail country, and the bulk of the unit is private land. There are a few large tracts owned by various timber companies, where hunting is allowed, mainly in the north. There are some agricultural lands, but the bulk of this is private land, broken into a mosaic pattern of small holdings. With a little scouting, hunters can find places to hunt as there are good numbers of small tracts of state ground and BLM lands. A GPS and a good map are very important in all of these units to assure hunters don’t cross onto private lands. Stephanie Bergh, the District 9 wildlife biologist for WDFW’s Region 5, reports that the mule deer populations have had a hard time getting back to the numbers they had in the early 2000’s. “The mule deer population is basically stable,” said Bergh. “But the mule deer in Klickitat country have not recovered since they took a big hit during the winter of 2016 and 2017.” “But the good news is they are stable,” she added. The Klickitat River marks the boundary line between GMU 578 and 388, with deer on the west side of the Klickitat considered as blacktails. However, there is some mixing of the two deer species, resulting in some hybrid deer. In order to improve the chances of a population rebound, Bergh said the state has axed antlerless harvest in these units. “There have been five seasons now with no antlerless harvest without seeing any uptick in the population of mule deer,” Bergh said. The general rifle seasons for these units all start on Oct. 17, and in blacktail units that season extends until Nov. 1. The mule deer units will only stay open until Oct. 27. There are also antler restrictions in all three units. The blacktail populations appear to be doing OK, but Bergh said they have no data on this population other than hunter harvest. “The harvest has been up recently for blacktail deer,” she said, “and they seem to be doing pretty well.” She noted that the WDFW has begun some collared deer surveys, as well as game camera surveys, in an attempt to improve their understanding of the health of the population. Many of these deer, both mule deer and blacktails, are migratory, but studies have shown a big difference among the individual animals. Some migrate good distance, while some travel short distances, and some just stay put. She noted the only direction they did not seem to travel in the fall was south. Another aspect that may be holding the populations back has been drought. “Recent droughts did not help,” noted Bergh, “especially when its impounding on many droughts in the years past. I think that is really hard on the deer, when they don’t have great forage availability.” There are some positives to take away, though. An example was last year’s mild winter. “The forage availability is not great, but when they have no winter they have to survive through, that’s good.” These areas have, so far, not had any Chronic Wasting Disease (CWD) detected in the deer populations. However, the fatal disease has been found within deer in the eastern portions of the state, leading to obligatory testing for any deer carcass harvested and being removed from the areas where the disease has been detected. When asked if its arrival in Region 5 is inevitable, Bergh replied cautiously. “I wish it wasn’t inevitable, but you can see by its march across the country that it is inevitable,” she said. “Hunters are the ones that are moving these pieces and parts of animals around. They really are 100 percent key to stopping this threat. “A lot of folks from Clark County are going to the east side of the state, and they really need to comply with these rules concerning CWD.” Bergh implores hunters to comply with the rules of CWD testing that are in place for many units within the state. The spread of this disease into Region 5 would complicate matters for all hunters in southwest Washington. With the many pressures on these populations, and the shortage of public access within these units, the hunters who take time to talk to landowners, and spend some serious time scouting, will undoubtedly give themselves a big advantage over the hunters that don’t. There are some private properties open to hunting through the WDFW private lands Hunting Access Program. These properties can be found listed online at https://privatelands.wdfw.wa.gov/private_lands/search.php.

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