Trail Cameras Offer Tool for Game and Fish

Wildlife managers in the Cody Region have put to use multiple new trail cameras recently donated by local sportsmen’s groups.

The Wyoming Game and Fish Department reports that the cameras were placed along migration routes delineated from the Eastern Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem mule deer project in the Clarks Fork and Upper Shoshone mule deer herd units. Wildlife Biologist Tony Mong said the cameras, donated by the Mule Deer Foundation and Wyoming Outdoorsmen, will be used in conjunction with other techniques currently used to monitor mule deer populations in the Cody area.

Mong will analyze the photos to collect sex and age class information, timing of migration, estimate winter mortality of fawns and in the future, evaluate annual and potentially seasonal body condition of deer.

Over the course of the fall, thousands of pictures of mule deer have already been collected by these cameras. In addition to the mule deer images, the cameras have been effective in capturing many other species including elk, fox, coyote, bighorn sheep, grizzly bears, snowshoe hares, dusky grouse and wolves.

Mong plans to discuss the results of the camera data at the Game and Fish Department’s upcoming season setting meetings in Cody next month.