District 7 — Southeast Montana 

 Headquarters Miles City 



Southeast Montana with its extensive prairie and 

 badland areas leads all other districts in antelope 

 harvest. Deer hunter success tops all other parts of 

 the state with harvest ranking second. Bighorn sheep 

 and elk exist in small numbers but do not support 

 hunting. 



The Long Pines of southeast Montana were the 

 initial site of Merriam turkey releases in 1955. Since 

 then, four successful hunting seasons have been held 

 there and many turkeys have been transplanted to 

 other suitable locations. Other areas in District 

 Seven have been opened to turkey hunting and all 

 indications are that the turkey will become even 

 more popular as an upland game bird in southeast 

 Montana. Prairie grouse and pheasants are the other 

 major upland bird species. Waterfowl hunting is 

 largely limited to the Yellowstone River and reser- 

 voirs. 



SERVICE PROJECTS 



General Wildlife Restocking 



The principal restocking during the biennium has 

 been the live-trapping and transplanting of bighorn 

 sheep, mountain goats and Merriam's wild turkeys. 

 The trapping of mountain goats from several ranges 

 in Montana and the movement of this valuable big 

 game species to new ranges has been an important 

 project for a number of years. Several new and 

 highly productive herds have been developed in 

 this way. 



The largest and most recent plants of sheep have 

 been made in the Stickney Creek-Sheep Creek area 

 across the Missouri River from Cascade. This is a 

 particularly likely range having an interesting his- 

 tory of mountain sheep that were apparently plentiful 

 there many years ago. Lewis and Clark, in their 

 journals, made particular note of the bighorn in this 

 area. In addition to sheep obtained from the Sun 

 River Canyon and Wildhorse Island, the largest 

 single plant yet made was obtained from surplus 

 animals made available from the National Bison 

 Range at Moiese. 



Work with the Merriam or Western wild turkey 

 has been particularly encouraging during the past 

 several years. The original stock obtained from 

 Wyoming and Colorado which were introduced into 

 the Long Pines area in Carter county and the Judith 

 Mountains in Fergus county have done well. Subse- 

 quent plants have been made possible in Montana 



Several new and productive herds of mountain sheep have been 

 developed through trapping and transplanting. 



with birds from these original plant sites. Additional 

 important areas now developing from more recent 

 plantings are the Ashland country south of Miles 

 City, the area around Plains, the Gates of the Moun- 

 tains region north of Helena, the Bull Mountains 

 between Roundup and Billings and also the Missouri 

 River bottoms on the upper reaches of the Fort Peck 

 Game Range. Sport hunting in several of these areas 

 is adding a new and challenging aspect to Mon- 

 tana's varied outdoor recreation program. 



Statewide Maintenance 



During the past several years, development areas 

 have been located on thirty-two reservoirs throughout 

 eastern Montana. Although not large, these areas 

 have been found of particular importance in attract- 

 ing waterfowl for nesting, feeding and resting in this 

 part of the state. They have also contributed ma- 

 terially to the upland game birds in those areas. 

 These developments located for the most part at the 

 upper end of reservoirs have been fenced so that 

 food and cover plants particularly desired by water- 

 fowl and upland game birds could be encouraged. 



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