Big game season going well, bird population affected by drought

With big game hunting season in full swing, hunters have been seeing and harvesting game aplenty, wildlife officials say.

Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks Havre-area biologist Scott Hemmer said Wednesday that 151 hunters have brought their mule deer to the check station this season, a number that's up about 20 percent from this time last year.

FWP posted on its website Monday that the Havre hunter check station was fairly active over the Oct. 21-22 weekend of general deer and elk opening, with an increase in hunters compared to last year.

Since it's in Havre, Hemmer said, the hunters who check in there are usually locals and the sample indicates just those who come through the check station.

Although up for the last two weeks, since general rifle season began, hunter participation overall has been lower. Opening weekend of pheasant and general antelope was Oct. 7, and bird season for many other species began Sept. 1. One reason for the overall hunter participation decline, Hemmer said, is that snow at the beginning of the month may have kept some hunters home.

While mule deer harvest numbers have been up - this year FWP sold out the additional mule deer B tags that were made available - whitetail harvest numbers have not increased.

"Whitetail numbers have been down - we've only had 25 whitetail numbers come through versus 30 last year at this time, so we're down 17 percent," Hemmer said.

However, the sample is too small to draw any reliable conclusions, he added. Based on his conversations with people, Hemmer said he believes whitetail numbers are better than those sample numbers indicate.

Whether up or down, Hemmer said the whitetail harvest numbers for the last few years have not been what they used to be before 2013, when there was a hemorrhagic disease outbreak that curbed the whitetail deer population.

"That really knocked our whitetail numbers back," he said. "But they've been coming back."

Like in the case of whitetail, Hemmer said, the antelope harvest numbers this year may not be fully indicative of what's happening in the field.

"We've had 80 antelope come through, and that's down 7 percent. We had 86 last year," he said. "I actually think antelope numbers are up a little bit, but opening weekend with the winter hurt antelope numbers."

While there is no indication this year's drought reduced big-game availability, there is some evidence to suggest that may be the case for birds. Drought has affected pheasant, grouse and Hungarian partridge harvest numbers, Hemmer said.

"Those are all down about 50 percent - some over, some under - but pheasant were down like 47 percent, long term," Hemmer said. "Sharp-tailed were 58 percent down for long term. We don't see a lot of Hungarian partridge anyway, but those were down 52 percent.

"I just think the drought conditions really affected the survival of the young birds this year," Hemmer said, adding that birds rely on insects for their survival.