Activity In North Dakota Oil Patch Associated With Record Number Of Deer Despite One Of The Most Severe Winters On Record

Updates

June 7, 2013: see first comment.  I corrected the post below. It looks like there may be differing opinions on overall "health" of the mule deer population in North Dakota.

Original Post

Not entirely accurate, but something tells me one could write that headline based on data points in an article posted by The Dickinson Press. Data points from the article:

• the 2012-13 winter in western North Dakota may have been one of the most severe in decades
• mule deer population surged in western North Dakota; up 15%
• increased to more than 5 mule deer per square mile
• project in place to see how oil activity is affecting mule deer population

Risk: with the surge in mule deer population this past winter, a drop in population is likely next year; oil patch activities could be wrongly blamed if population drops.

Comment below: apparently the historical average is about 7.5 mule deer / square mile; last year things were particularly tough and the density / population dropped to around 4 mule deer / square mile. With restrictions on hunting (and other possible factors) density is back up to about 5 mule deer/square mile. I hope I got that right this time.