From the North Dakota Game and Fish Department

-- The Game and Fish Department’s annual spring mule deer survey will begin April 12 in western North Dakota. Weather permitting, the survey takes a week to complete.

Bruce Stillings, big game biologist in Dickinson, said biologists have completed aerial surveys of the same 24 badlands study areas since the 1950s.

The survey obtains mule deer population data for the badlands, such as demographic trends and production ratios like buck-to-doe and fawn-to-doe, according to Stillings.

The mule deer population index for western North Dakota continues to remain higher than the long-term average. In 2009, biologists counted 2,483 mule deer in 291 square miles.