For at least two human generations, Western big-game managers have drilled into hunters the importance of winter range. Without south-facing slopes that amplify feeble winter sun, hardy shrubs that provide precious calories and low-elevation flats that blow clear of drifting snow, our mule deer and elk populations would never have flourished over the past decades.
Conservation of these vital winter habitats, which, coincidentally, are also prime real estate for subdivisions, gas wells and base-camp lodges, has been synonymous with conservation of our big-game herds. It’s why our most valuable Western wildlife management areas are in foothills habitat.
But new research
