Wyoming antelope population article

Amazing how it didn't take long for the once unthinkable numbers of pronghorn in Wyoming to vanish. Just a few years ago you could witness people taking truckloads of pronghorn off the landscape just outside of Casper.

2 buck tags and 4 doe tags each it doesn't take long to fill up a truck. Ranchers wanted them removed, cars were splattering them all over highways, now it's a chore to see many from the highways.

Can the numbers go up as fast as they went down? Not with doe tags still being issued. Not with the numbers of buck tags still being issued. IMHO they should have closed the season this year, maybe even for two years. Just sad.
 
Amazing how it didn't take long for the once unthinkable numbers of pronghorn in Wyoming to vanish. Just a few years ago you could witness people taking truckloads of pronghorn off the landscape just outside of Casper.

2 buck tags and 4 doe tags each it doesn't take long to fill up a truck. Ranchers wanted them removed, cars were splattering them all over highways, now it's a chore to see many from the highways.

Can the numbers go up as fast as they went down? Not with doe tags still being issued. Not with the numbers of buck tags still being issued. IMHO they should have closed the season this year, maybe even for two years. Just sad.
I drove through Casper on Friday headed south. It's a very desolate prairie for miles on end. Mother nature took her toll last winter. Very sad to see
 
Anecdotally, I just drove through Sublette county and definitely saw more pronghorn than I did driving the same stretch last year. Very unscientific, but last spring I only counted single digits, whereas last week it was a couple of dozen. I know WGFD will be very conservative with tag allocations in the area this year, even more so than last year, so hopefully the herd can start moving in the right direction.
 
Thousands of doe tags, priced like they’re varmints, I’d expect the population to be in the shitter. Add in the inevitable bad winters and here we are.
 
I’ve driven from CO to Utah along 80 several times now, down through Saratoga area, and it’s a ghost town. There is one pocket unit to the east where I’ve seen a lot, but the 80 cooridor is/was crushed.
 
I can’t bring myself to hunt Wyoming antelope until they recover some numbers.
I applied for a tag this year. First time in years. I figure that if I get one every 5 or six years it's less of an impact.

That being said, if pronghorn hunting were to be shut down for a few years or more, I would be cool with that.
 
I applied for a tag this year. First time in years. I figure that if I get one every 5 or six years it's less of an impact.

That being said, if pronghorn hunting were to be shut down for a few years or more, I would be cool with that.
Wyoming knows how to manage antelope. If they gave you a tag, then it is a net positive to get after them. Good luck!
 
There are pockets, and there is doom. Up in WY now in a pocket that has them.
 
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Areas I saw a 75 to 100 bucks a day a few years ago compared to last year didn't see 25 antelope in a whole day. The decline even started prior to the bad winter
 
Leupold BX-4 Rangefinding Binoculars

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