MT Area 700 Antelope - What has happened?
 

I left MT for a new job about 4 years ago. When I was there I always applied for area 700, where the odds always seemd to be very high, like in the 90% range. I rememebr about 11,000 applicants for 10,000 tags or some huge number like that.

Last few years as a non-resident, I successfully drew area 590 but the public land is scarce.

This year I applied in 700 for me, now a non-resident, and my son, still a resident. Both of us missed. I checked the odds and the draw was only 35% last year. 8300 applications for 3000 tags.


I should have checked the odds first. Have I missed out on some depredation or bad winters or something?

Always check the quotas beforehand because they're always changing. The whole state was hammered by the harsh winter in 2010. The antelope particularly in the north and east were hit very hard. I wouldn't expect quotas to go back up for a number of years.

AKJeff is right on the money with that response! Two years ago the snow depth was ridiculous out in the eastern half of the state and they lost a tremendous amount of animals because they couldn't get to food. A lot of them got up on the train tracks so they could get around and hundreds were killed when they couldn't get off the tracks. I believe it was something like 2000+ also went south across the ice on the reservoir up there and then got stranded when it melted and it was too far for them to swim back north in the Spring. People wanted to truck them back over to their natural area, but they determined it wasn't feasible monetarily and that the stress would take a big toll on them because they were in such bad shape pyhsically. They ended up dying and all those factors ended up in huge tag cuts that will probably continue for a few years with hopes that the winters won't knock them down again.

Thanks for the answers guys! Yep, lesson learned, always check quotas. I had drawn 700 for so many years, and the stats were always so high that I just got in the habit of winning. Lose touch for a couple years and obviously things can change fast.

Does anyone know if the antelope population in the Thunder Basin Region of Wyoming was also affected badly by winterkill in 2010?