The changes are aimed at reducing hunting pressure on public land and bringing the state’s flagging mule deer population out of a multiyear decline.
By Amanda Eggert MONTANA FREE PRESS
The Montana Fish and Wildlife Commission on Thursday adopted a handful of new deer hunting regulations aimed at reducing hunting pressure on public land and bringing the state’s flagging mule deer population out of a multiyear decline.
During an eight-hour meeting in Helena, the commission voted to reduce available nonresident deer hunter licenses by about 2,500 licenses for the 2026-2027 hunting seasons. The commission also voted to reduce the total number of deer a Montana hunter can kill in a season from eight to three, and reined in the number of does both resident and nonresident hunters can harvest on public land.
Commission Chair Lesley Robison described the rise in hunting pressure and decline of deer populations as issues she’s been passionate about since she joined the commission, which includes seven governor-appointed members. One person she spoke with recently counted more than 35 vehicles, most of them displaying out-of-state plates, while hunting in a district south of Ennis, Robison said.
Robinson added that she’s open to revisiting the new policy, which is estimated to reduce Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks’ license collections by $1.7 million annually, once the department has more clarity on what’s driving deer numbers down. She also acknowledged that the policy will impact small businesses that rely on an influx of nonresident hunters in the fall.
An analysis of the proposal prepared by FWP estimated it would reduce “harvest pressure” while allowing for the sale of more than 12,000 deer licenses to nonresidents in the upcoming hunting season.
“I had no intention of negatively affecting the outfitter business, but something has to be done to get back on track with the overcrowding,” Robinson said.
Commissioners Kirby Brooke of Bozeman and Jeff Burrows of Hamilton echoed the preponderance of public comments about deer populations and hunter crowding. In addition to offering in-person testimony Thursday, members of the public provided a raft of written comments prior to the commission’s meeting.
“It’s on everybody’s mind. I mean, we had 347 pages of comments and mule deer were mentioned in almost all of them,” Brooke said during the meeting.
“We need to do something, we need to do it now, and it needs to be more than just a scalpel,” Burrows said. “We need to take a hatchet to this thing.”
Burrows added that he’s confident the outfitting industry won’t be overly impacted by the change due to an existing system that allows clients who hunt with an outfitter to purchase “preference points” that increase their odds of drawing a tag.
Chris Fortune, with the Mule Deer Foundation, praised the reduction to nonresident licenses, saying that mule deer — populations of which are currently well below 10-year averages across the majority of the state — can bounce back, “but we’ve got to do our part.”
Fortune also backed a proposal by Commissioner Ian Wargo, who represents northwest Montana, that limits the amount of “B” — or antlerless — tags available to deer hunters.
Wargo’s amendment, which passed unanimously, applies to both resident and nonresident hunters pursuing mule deer on public land across the state, with the exception of Region One (northwest Montana) and areas where wildlife managers are trying to manage urban deer and limit the spread of chronic wasting disease. The amendment is modeled on a similar change the commission authorized for the northeast and southeast regions of the state last year. Wargo’s change applies only to public land so that landowners who experience issues with deer — for example, forage loss, which can squeeze livestock operations — can continue to use hunting as a management tool.
