Could Missoula Follow Havre’s Lead with an Urban Deer Hunt?

Archery season is on now in Montana. As an avid bow hunter, nothing is more frustrating than traveling around Big Sky country looking for deer, only to come home to a herd of them in your yard. I will never forget the week I took a 1,200-mile hunting trip and never left the state. I came home empty-handed. Only to discover the sight of a giant buck lying down in my flower bed. The thoughts of campaigning for an urban deer hunt were abundant in my mind on that day.

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Missoula has had an urban deer population that has been growing out of control in recent years. In fact, driving in Missoula neighborhoods at night can be dangerous. With the threat of deer popping out at every turn.

I personally witnessed the most Missoula thing ever. I watched as a car fatally hit a deer on 39th Street. The driver drug the carcass off the road and continued on their way. Minutes later, a Subaru Outback pulled up and "tagged" the deer with a special "road kill permit" from the Montana FWP. The person then continued to skillfully stuff the road kill deer in the back of the small SUV. It was impressive, to say the least.

Havre recently implemented a hunting season for urban deer. Much like Missoula, the urban deer population was getting out of hand and needed management. But how do you hunt deer in an urban setting? We can't just blast a high-powered rifle off in the parking lot of  Walmart or while the neighbor is mowing his yard.

Send in the archery hunters.

According to a recent press release from Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks

To help control deer populations within Havre, the City of Havre is continuing its urban deer management plan, which includes an archery hunting opportunity for antlerless mule deer within and adjacent to the city limits. The management plan addresses deer that threaten human safety or property and reduces the potential for human-deer interactions and conflicts by lowering deer density within the city. One portion of the plan is implementing a public archery hunt in areas identified by the city

The archery-only season resembles our archery-only district in the Missoula and Bitterroot valleys. The only difference is, that there are certain locations inside city limits where hunting is allowed.