Cheyenne Stewart (bottom right) speaks with residents during the Season Setting meeting held in Thayne. SVI photo/Dan Dockstader

Cheyenne Stewart, Wildlife Management Coordinator with the Wyoming Game & Fish, spoke with SVI Media’s Dan Dockstader recapping the Season Setting Public Meeting held last week in Thayne.

Additional meetings will be held this week on Wednesday, March 25 at 4:00 in the Cokeville Town Hall and at 7:00 in the South Lincoln Training and Events Center in Kemmerer.

Public comment is open through April 1.

(0:00) SBI Media at the Community Center in Thane, Wyoming Game and Fish in Star Valley (0:06) tonight to accept comment and gather input on the hunting seasons that are (0:11) coming up and joining us here is Cheyenne Stewart. She’s the Wildlife (0:16) Management Coordinator for the Game and Fish. Some few highlights about what (0:21) what you’re explaining to people here tonight Cheyenne.

Yeah thank you for (0:25) having me. So we have our hunting season regulations open for public comment and (0:32) so we have proposed seasons for the 2026 hunting season for big game, small game, (0:40) upland and other species and so we’re having a public meeting right now (0:45) talking to folks, answering questions and we have a bunch of information on our (0:49) website about these proposals and trying to generate public comment on those (0:54) proposals. What are a few highlights out of those proposals? Any changes in dates (0:59) that we might be aware of? Yeah there’s a few things that I think this community (1:03) would be particularly interested in.

The big one is Wyoming range mule deer so (1:08) that herd had a pretty substantial die-off a few winters ago which is (1:14) probably news to nobody listening to this but what’s pretty fantastic is the (1:19) amount of growth and recovery in in the last three years since that happened so (1:25) we have incredible fawn ratios the last two years we’ve had 80 or more fawns per (1:31) 100 does counted on winter range and this year what’s really fantastic is our (1:36) buck ratios are within our objectives for that herd so even though that that (1:42) population is still growing and on its way to full recovery it’s performing (1:47) incredibly well and then the neighboring herd sublet deer is even (1:52) closer to objective and and performing even better in terms of overall numbers (1:58) and so what folks will see is a proposal for a moderate season extension for (2:03) Wyoming range deer herds and that is because we want to make sure folks have (2:09) ample opportunity and if you have a similar number of hunters a field but (2:15) they have more days to pursue deer and we really feel like that population is (2:20) in a place where it can afford some additional moderately additional buck (2:25) harvest. Okay we can of course go to the Game and Fish website for an overview (2:30) but if people want to comment or have a comment beyond tonight here in Star (2:35) Valley when and how do they do that and what’s the deadline? Absolutely if they (2:39) go to our website and go to the regulations page there’s a place to (2:44) access all of these proposals we also have a few changes proposed for elk (2:50) seasons in this area that folks might be interested in taking a look at so take a (2:56) look at the proposals on our website if you have any questions or concerns just (3:01) look up your Game and Fish regional office give us a call and then also on (3:06) the website is information of how to submit your comments and we will use (3:11) that information to update these proposals the deadline is April 1st so (3:18) go on our website provide comments by April 1st and then we will reassess our (3:23) our proposals based on those comments and then submit those to our Commission (3:28) for approval. Okay thank you Cheyenne, Stuart, Wyoming Game and Fish.