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No I haven't I'm guilty of being to caught up with life. Untill Greg came and cleaned house I have honestly never paid much attention. But I see it being more and more important and I'm willing to make those trips.
That is true, this I see as a possible middle ground to keeping some opportunity and gaining more deer to the landscape.
Thank you I appreciate the informationSeveral different types and brands of collars available, but for the combo VHF/GPS multi-year battery life collars they tend to be pretty spendy. Its tough to get a solid number on cost as most companies base that on the quantity purchased and potential for further contracts. From what I remember it is usually around $2500. Although, that is only a fraction of the total cost for getting good info. It costs agencies money to pay a contractor to catch and apply the collars. There is also software needed to monitor the information from the collars. It also takes a considerable amount of time for a biologist to plan, prepare, stage, monitor, and produce a report on the results only for the upper management to completely ignore the results and their recommendations. VIT and ear tag VHF collars are quite a bit cheaper, but also require someone to be out monitoring them daily and a team to hike into the kill site or birth site to collect info.
I can tell you from working with many biologists from many western states that there is a lot of frustration in their ranks. I can't blame them. They do a ton of work to try to help wildlife only to have the agency and state legislatures ignore their recommendations or even do the opposite.
Some of you may remember one of the first FWP related directives that our current governor had Hank implement, was to decrease wildlife research and eliminate any long term wildlife studies. He wanted a two year cap on any research. Talk to any wildlife biologist and they will tell you that 2 years worth of data isn't worth squat when it comes to long term trends.
Montana's wildlife agency pulls back on science work
Montana’s Department of Fish, Wildlife & Parks plans to shift its research program toward short-term, in-house efforts after a decade of ambitious work helped make it a world-renowned scientific contributor.
https://missoulacurrent.com/science-fwp-gianforte/
I worked on a couple of mule deer collaring projects in MT. We caught primarily bucks along the border with Canada from the Sweetgrass Hills to north of Malta. I know that there were a few other areas where deer were caught as part of this CWD monitoring project. Not sure if the data collected gets used for anything other than CWD related stuff.
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We also caught does and fawns in the southern Bitteroot as part of the predator/prey relationship project that completed a few years ago. There was a much higher focus on elk than deer on that one, but deer were part of it. I wasn't there, but another crew caught some mule deer does along the RMF. Montana FWP does quite a bit of collar related research, but at least while I was part of it, deer were way down the list behind elk (brucellosis), sheep, goats and wolves. Of all the states I worked in, Colorado was by far the most invested in mule deer research. We were putting out well over a thousand collars on mule deer in NW CO alone.
Other than while working, I have seen 3 doe mule deer, 1 buck, 4 cows, 1 moose, and 3 sheep with collars in MT. At least those that I recall seeing. This is a doe wearing a collar near Darby.
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Thanks! The allocation wasn’t as bad as I actually thought it was. Nonresidents just don’t get to hunt with long range rifles. You don’t see many people complaining about North Dakota. Don’t let their foot in the door.
Photo taken 10/7/23, yes that was opening day, Montana public land. Ended up seeing a few with collars that trip. It was good to see that "someone" is doing something!
The only problem it creates is that the NR archery allocation is based off previous years tags.
I think you just answered the collar question, a collar on a mule deer buck irregardless of age would be a death sentence.I think the biggest problem with the type of collar they put on bucks is that they die after about 2.5 years. The collars still work though.
Sorry, bad joke and in no way should be taken serious to mule deer management in MT.
After seeing @theat video the other day I’d think the collar is probably the cheaper part of that. But Montana would get a bargain we could probably use the same collar on 3-4 different bucks just gotta pay the guys to keep putting them back on#keepcollaring
I see some people that got public land doe slaughter canceled in regions 6 and 7.
Heard the same excuses from Fish & Game when they started elk shoulder seasons. No one would ever charge anyone to shoot a cow. Lasted a week before outfitters were advertising shoulder season hunts for $500. Up to $3000 in places now. But I’m sure their support for the public land doe ban is entirely altruistic.
I am confident that the reason the outfitters pushed the ban on public land doe tags was not so they could sell more doe hunts.
But it certainly demonstrates who is controlling regulation of wildlife in our state. And it makes me very uncomfortable that the group that does so is a commercial interest. The next altruistic outfitter I meet will be the first.
