Friggan Bears do more killing of the deer than the cats ever will. Bears will follow the does just before they drop the fawns and then get the fawns.
Between that and wolves, the white tail deer population in the UP of Michigan has dropped. I imagine it is the same with the Mule Deer.
One other..how about these geniuses start clear cutting some of the aspen stands so the deer have more browse?
“Friggan Bears do more killing of the deer than the cats ever will.”
Depends where you’re located. In the UP, you don’t have many cougars. In my area of New Mexico they’re abundant. A single cougar will kill one deer about every 10 days, and a cougar with kitten kills a deer about every 4 days. In contrast, the bears around here are primarily scavengers. I mention this about NM because we have similar cougar densities (if not more) to Colorado.
I have a 1/4 acre garden just outside my door. Every year at the end of the growing season I plant the 1/4 acre in winter wheat as a cover crop to turn into the soil in the spring. The wheat is now about 1-1/2” tall and the mule deer ‘discovered’ it again. Most nights there will be anywhere between 6 to 24 deer in there eating the wheat. They’re not afraid. I can run out there clapping and yelling and they’ll just stand there looking at me. Same with honking a horn or shooting a few rounds into the ground. What they ARE afraid of are the cougars. At some point a cougar will come up from the nearby creek and find the deer. He’ll have hit the jackpot of a deer buffet. I can always tell when he’s come around because in the middle of the night I’ll hear all the deer scattering and crashing into things trying to get away from the cat. Needless to say, I don’t go out at night this time of year without a strong flashlight and a firearm. The cougars around here pick off a person every year or so to add some variety to their diet of deer.
The muley’s around here are definitely bigger than any whitetail. I find it pretty cool how the cougars have the strength to drag a full grown mule deer up into a tree to eat, as well as for safe keeping for later meals.