Hunt areas would be based on deer migration patterns

The 56,000 or so people who hunt mule deer east of the Cascades each year, whether they carry a rifle or a bow, could see a major change in the boundaries of many hunt areas in 2026.

This fall’s hunts won’t be affected.

The proposal, if adopted by the Oregon Fish and Wildlife Commission this September, would apply to 2026 hunts, said Josh Smith, mule deer coordinator for the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife.

Details, including maps, are available at tinyurl.com/ynfp8nvc.

Due to declining mule deer populations, a trend ODFW attributes to numerous factors, including predation, climate change, habitat loss and degradation, Oregon’s 2024 mule deer plan calls on the agency to use herd ranges, rather than the wildlife management units, as the basis for managing the species, including hunting tag allocations.

In many areas, mule deer live in a different area during hunting seasons than during the agency’s annual winter population count, said Smith, who works at ODFW’s La Grande office.

Due to the discrepancy, ODFW biologists believe the agency is allocating hunting tag numbers based on faulty numbers, Smith said.

For instance, the Desolation Unit, mainly in Grant County, is primarily summer range for mule deer, Smith said.

During the winter, when ODFW counts deer in that and the 46 other units with mule deer hunts, there are relatively few deer. As a result, the agency likely is issuing fewer tags for the Desolation Unit than is appropriate based on the mule deer population during the hunting seasons in summer and early fall, before animals have moved to winter range elsewhere, Smith said.

The situation is the opposite in some other units, he said, including the Ochoco, Silvies, Fossil and Grizzly units. In those and other areas that contain large expanses of winter range for mule deer, the population is much higher during the winter than during hunting seasons, which can lead to ODFW allocating more tags than is warranted based on deer numbers during hunting seasons, Smith said.

To identify these discrepancies, ODFW fitted tracking collars to about 1,400 mule deer and plotted their seasonal migrations from 2005-20.

Setting hunts using ‘herd ranges’

Biologists learned deer movements often don’t adhere to the boundaries of the 47 hunting units that ODFW created in the 1950s.

“Surprise, surprise, mule deer don’t follow geopolitical boundaries,” Smith said with a chuckle. “When you start looking at the data, there was just a mismatch.”

The agency’s proposal is to set tag numbers and hunting area boundaries based on what biologists call “herd ranges” — where mule deer actually live during hunting seasons — rather than on the traditional units.

Biologists mapped 22 herd ranges east of the Cascades. These ranges encompass the entire area a herd uses through the year, including summer and winter ranges and the migration corridor between.

The proposal the wildlife commission will consider during its September meeting in Ontario would create 43 hunt areas for mule deer, the boundaries based on the herd ranges.

The proposed changes are only for mule deer, Smith said.

ODFW is not proposing to do the same thing for Rocky Mountain elk, at least for now, and hunts for elk, antelope, bighorn sheep and mountain goats will continue to use the traditional unit boundaries.

However, Smith said ODFW has collared elk with a goal of tracking their seasonal movements. Elk are much more “nomadic” than deer, and the seasonal migrations of elk are less predictable.

There is a “potential,” though, for ODFW to propose changes in the future for hunt area boundaries for elk, Smith said.

Effects on tag numbers, preference points

Smith understands the key question from hunters is how this new system would affect the total number of mule deer tags.

He doesn’t have an answer yet.

Smith said biologists are using computer models to process the data they collected from tracking collars. He said proposed tag numbers for the proposed new hunt areas should be available by July. He said ODFW will be “more conservative” in proposing tag numbers to start, however, so the total number of mule deer tags could drop compared to 2025.

Some hunt areas could have more tags, though, due to situations such as the one Smith mentioned in the Desolation unit.

Although the final decision about hunt boundaries and tag allocations rests with the wildlife commission, ODFW is encouraging mule deer hunters to consider how to use their preference points for the 2025 seasons.

While each hunter’s preference points will carry over into 2026, the number of preference points needed to draw a tag for one of the new hunt areas, should the wildlife commission approve the new system, could change substantially compared to the current units, Smith said.

The Warner Unit in Lake County, for example, which has separate hunts for the north and south parts of the unit, will be combined into a single hunt area. Currently, hunters need 17 preference points to draw a tag for North Warner, but just three points for South Warner.

Smith said it likely will take a few years for hunters to be able to predict, with much certainty, how many preference points it would take to draw a tag for a given hunt area.

Map changes

Under the proposed new system, hunt areas would be named alphanumerically — SW-01 for instance — rather than by geographic location as with the current units — Desolation and Starkey, for example.

The difference in boundaries between the current units and the proposed hunt areas varies.

In Baker County, the proposed SW-01 hunt area includes most or all of four current units — Lookout Mountain, Keating, Pine Creek and Catherine Creek.

In Umatilla and Morrow counties, the proposed NB-02 hunt area includes parts of the current Columbia Basin, Ukiah and Heppner units.

In some cases, such as the current Starkey Unit, the proposed new hunt area, SP-02, is basically contiguous with the “old” unit.

Smith said ODFW tried to avoid dramatic changes in hunt areas boundaries when that made sense based on data from the 15-year deer tracking project.

“Where we could, we wanted to maintain some consistency,”  he said.

Smith said ODFW officials recognize that many people have hunted the same unit for decades.