The Snowy Range, Sierra Madres and surrounding area offer some of the best hunting opportunities in Wyoming. Prong-horn antelope, mule deer, white-tailed deer, elk, moose, black bear, mountain lion and bighorn sheep are the big game animals available.  Blue grouse, sage grouse, ducks, geese, wild turkey, morning doves and cottontail rabbits are the common small game. The Bureau of Land Management (BLM), National Forest and State lands offer plenty of access-ible public lands with a great variety of terrain. 

Licenses
Nonresident big game licenses are distributed by a lottery system.  Hunting applications must be submitted January-March.  Applications, deadlines, booklets and other hunting information are available from the Wyoming Game and Fish Dept. website at http://gf.state.wy.us .  Game bird and small game licenses may be purchased from the Wyoming Game and Fish Dept., local sporting goods stores and outdoor shops.  For area maps, contact the BLM, P. O. Box 2407, Rawlins, WY 82301, (307) 328-4200, www.blm.gov/nhp or the U. S. Forest Service, P. O. Box 249, Saratoga, WY 82331, (307) 326-5258, www.fs.fed.us/r2/mbr .

Big Game Animals
PRONGHORN ANTELOPE are common throughout Wyoming's prairies, which hold the largest antelope population of any state.  There are more than 15,000 pronghorns in the Platte River Valley.  Named after a feature on the male's head, they are the only creature in the world to shed a branched horn each year.  Their eyes measure about two inches in diameter and are bigger than those of a horse and are nearly as large as an elephant's.  Prong-horns are the fastest land animals in North America and rely on speed to escape their enemies.  They can sprint for a short distance at 60 miles per hour!  
Forbs, the abundant sagebrush and other shrubs like bitterbrush, mountain mahogany, chokecherry make up this animal's diet.  Sagebrush is more than just food; it's a hiding place for fawns, and shelter from winter winds and predators.

Before settlement of the country, ELK ranged from the eastern states through central and western North America.  As settlers pushed westward, the distribution of the elk was rapidly reduced to the western mountains.  Today, there are more than 15,000 elk in the mountains of southern Wyoming. Elk are ungulates (hooved animals) that belong to the deer family.  They have a dark head, neck and legs, with a lighter brown body and cream-colored rump.  “Wapiti," is the Shawnee Indian name for "white rump."  Elk primarily eat at dawn and dusk, grazing on lush grasses and wildflowers.  They spread out during the summer and gather back together in groups for the rut, the breeding season, in the fall.  Bulls emit a high-pitched whistling sound (bugle), followed by grunts, as part of the mating ritual.  Rival males respond by bugling back. Bulls may spar with challengers after demonstrating threat postures and thrashing the ground with their antlers.  Antlers are shed each year during March and April.  New antler growth begins within a week and continues until late August when the antlers are full sized. During the peak period of growth in the summer, antlers may grow one inch per day.

MULE DEER , like pronghorns, are browsers with over half of their diet con-sisting of shrubs, especially sagebrush.  They are similar to white-tailed deer but differ mainly in their tails, ears and antlers.  Mule deer keep their black tipped tails down. Their ears are uniquely large, like a mule's ears, from which their name is derived.  Mule deer antlers grow upward and fork once with each fork dividing again in mature bucks.  Typically, they shed their antlers February-March.
Mule deer can “stott”, their combination of running and jumping, up to 45 mph.  There are approximately 40,000 mule deer in the Snowy Range and Sierra Madre mountains and surrounding area.

Until the late 1970s, only a few stray SHIRAS MOOSE wandered into southern Wyoming in an indirect route from Yellowstone through Idaho, Utah and Colorado.  To help boost populations, moose were transplanted to Colorado's North Park region in 1978.  Reproducing quickly, moose began to move northward and expand into the mountains of southern Wyoming.  More than 150 moose reside here today.

“Moose” comes from the Algonquin Indian word meaning “eater of twigs”.  The most common place to find moose is in the willow bottoms and forests, although they have been sighted just about everywhere.  Adult moose weigh 800-1,200 pounds and do not herd into large groups as do many species of big game, even in winter. They prefer to travel in small family groups or to remain secluded.
The greatest threat to our moose are people.  Because of their docile demeanor and general “big game” appearance, moose are common victims of poaching and accidental kills.  Be sure to identify deer, elk, and moose by looking at body size and color, the head and antlers.  Moose have a dark, black-brown body with an overhanging snout, a bell on the throat and whitish, gray legs.

Game Birds
Grouse
Every spring at the crack of dawn, Wyoming's sagebrush desert comes alive with the distinctive mating behavior of the SAGE GROUSE.   Sage grouse are very large with a long, pointed tail.  Males gather on display grounds, leks, to perform a "strutting dance” for gathering females.  In full courtship display, the male inflates a yellow air sac from under-neath its white breast feathers, fans its tail and erects feather plumes on his head.  He struts forward, and produces a series of "wing swishes," "air sac plops" and a whistle.  The strut is repeated endlessly, eight or ten times a minute.  The best time to view strutting on dozens of leks in the Platte Valley is late-March through early-May.  Leks are in the same location year after year. Grouse hunting licenses are available for Fall hunting only.

BLUE GROUSE are birds of the high mountain country, often found in areas dense with ponderosa pine, Douglas fir and aspen.  Blue grouse, which weigh between one and three pounds, utilize a wide variety of food sources from currants, berries and buds to fern tips and conifer needles.  The colorful male blue grouse produces a vocal "hoot" from February through May to attract females.

Wild Turkey
Although nearly wiped out in the early 1930's, wild turkey popula-tions have rebounded across the nation.  In fact, it wasn't until 1955 when hunters could again harvest them in Wyoming.  Wild turkeys are native to North America.  Two of the five sub-species are common in Wyoming:  MERRIAM'S, which is found primarily in ponderosa pine and RIO GRANDE, which prefer more open terrain.  With their excellent day vision, running speeds up to 25mph and flying speeds up to 55mph, wild turkeys are a fun challenge for hunters each Spring and Fall.