What do you do when a mule deer herd becomes the most diseased wild deer population on the planet? Wyoming’s answer: let hunters shoot as many bucks as they can.
The Project Mule Deer Herd in Wyoming’s Wind River Basin now carries the highest chronic wasting disease prevalence ever documented in a wild ungulate population anywhere in the world. Over a recent five-year stretch, 62% of hunter-harvested adult bucks tested positive. A third of the does have it. And in 2025, only 29% of collared bucks in the study survived the year.
Let that sink in. In a normal herd, a buck’s odds of surviving a given year are pretty good. In this one, CWD-infected deer survived at a 27% rate compared to 69% for healthy deer. The disease — always fatal, no vaccine, no cure — is quite literally eating the herd alive.
The Radical Play: More Tags, Not Fewer
For decades, Western wildlife management has been about protecting bucks and growing herds. Wyoming Game and Fish just flipped that playbook on its head. Starting with the 2025 season, the department opened the Project Herd’s units to general licenses — essentially unlimited buck hunting — and has proposed extending the aggressive approach across neighboring herds for 2026: longer seasons and more licenses in the Dubois herd, and dropped antler-point restrictions in the South Wind River and Sweetwater herds.
The logic is cold but simple. Bucks carry CWD at roughly double the rate of does, and they spread it as they roam. Fewer old bucks means less disease transmission. As one Game and Fish wildlife coordinator put it, the goal is to maintain as high a harvest as possible on bucks. Another biologist summed up the gut-punch of it: it’s hard to go from saving bucks to shooting a lot of bucks.
Why This Should Worry Every Western Hunter
Here’s the part that goes way beyond one basin in Wyoming. GPS collar research on the Project Herd tracked deer migrating as far as 90 miles — one doe traveled all the way to the Teton Wilderness, another 60 miles to the Oregon Buttes. Every one of those migrating deer is a potential disease vector, carrying CWD into new country. Biologists warn that some of those ancient migration routes may be lost entirely as infected deer are killed off.
And the disease isn’t respecting state lines. CWD has been detected spreading north out of Wyoming toward Montana’s mule deer herds, and states across the West are watching the Wind River Basin like a canary in a coal mine. We’ve covered the CWD debate before — but this is no longer a debate. This is a wildlife agency using hunters as the treatment.
What It Means for Your Hunts
First: hunters are the management tool. Wherever you hunt deer this fall, get your animal tested — it’s free in many states (check your state wildlife agency), and the data is how biologists track the spread. Follow carcass transport rules religiously; hauling an infected carcass across a state line is how this disease jumps mountain ranges.
Second: healthy herds are worth paying for. The good news is that plenty of the West still holds thriving mule deer country. Our southwest Colorado trophy mule deer hunts run on managed private ground with genetics and age class that will make you forget the bad news, and the Gunnison Basin mule deer hunt covers some of the best high-country deer habitat left anywhere. If you’ve never chased big desert bucks, New Mexico mule deer is one of the most underrated hunts in the West.
The mule deer’s future is going to be decided in the next decade, and hunters — not politicians, not hashtags — are the ones funding and executing the fight. That’s worth being proud of.
We’ll be breaking this story down on the Hunt Podcast, and if you want to hunt healthy deer country this season, browse our guided mule deer trips or get in touch and we’ll match you to the right unit.
Hunting is not a hobby. It’s an obsession.
