A Great Start to 2012 for Wildlife

It’s clear that deer throughout much of our country have a leg up on the winter already. Extremely rare warm temperatures and a lack of snow across much of the midwest, west and east means different things to different folks, but to us hunters it means a bumper crop of deer in the coming season.

Mild temperatures and a lack of heavy snow cover means whitetails throughout much of the country are going to fair extremely well this winter.

This is good news for just about anyone who lives to hunt whitetails, but has special implications in certain states that have been hit hardest over the last few years. The Dakotas, as well as several western states had three hard winters in a row that took a major toll on the whitetail populations. Top that off with EHD outbreaks in many of the river drainages and the outlook is downright dismal in regions that were previously considered whitetail meccas.

Fortunately, deer are good at a couple of things. The first is surviving and the second is procreation. Stressful winters lead to fewer deer, and the does that do survive are far more likely to drop fewer fawns. Couple those winters with healthy predator populations and it seems as if the numbers will never bounce back, but history has taught us otherwise. Deer, for the most part, are phenomenal at bouncing back.

Barring some extremely harsh late-winter weather, a bounce-back of sorts is what we will likely witness across some of the hardest hit areas. Other parts of the whitetail range with stable populations should see a bumper crop of fawns. Additionally, the mild weather we’ve experienced has probably saved you some money on supplemental feeding thus far, but don’t get too comfortable with all of those savings. One prolonged cold snap or major snowstorm will change feeding patterns in a hurry. If either occurs, it will seem as if winter is carrying on as it usually does.

Tony's father shot this Minnesota doe during the muzzleloader season. She was covered in a thick layer of fat indicating she was heading into the winter in extremely good shape.

However, the start to this winter has virtually ensured that plenty of deer will make it through and that we’ll see an impressive crop of fawns. This realization was hammered home to me recently on two separate occasions. The first involved a doe my father shot during the Minnesota muzzleloader season. The layer of fat she sported beneath her hide was thicker than we had ever seen. The second was a late-season grouse hunt in Wisconsin. A good friend and I scored on some of the cagey last-minute birds and while we cleaned them we realized that they also had several fat deposits. We marveled at this considering January grouse are usually very lean.

Healthy animals in the winter mean that this coming season should be unbelievable. I know I can’t wait to find out!