Whitetail Rendezvous

Mule Deer Foundation – Past, Present, & Future Over twenty years ago, the concept of giving something back to mule deer was a dream of Emmett Burroughs. As Emmett traveled around the country hunting and filming mule deer, he realized that many of us take this awesome species for granted. Think about what the world was like in 1988. Mule deer had been extremely abundant right up until the winters of 1983-84. Across the West, the record snowfall lingered long into spring and early summer. Many mule deer and black-tailed deer perished, mostly starving for lack of food covered by snow and from cold temperatures. A few years later, Emmett observed that mule deer populations had not rebounded from this die-off. Many factors contributed to mule deer not coming back – loss of habitat, predators, poaching, highways crossing through the middle of transitional ranges, and subdivisions being built on winter ranges. State wildlife agencies were busy trying to grow more elk and dealing with endangered spe