Montana Elk Harvest Is Up 17.2% While Mule Deer Harvest Is Down 43.3%

Montana Fish, Wildlife & Parks estimates that hunters killed 27,262 elk in 2025, up 17.2% from 23,255 in 2004, while the mule deer harvest fell 43.3%, from 64,766 to 36,729. More than half of the mule deer drop is in the doe harvest, and resident hunters account for most of it. These are harvest estimates, shaped by licenses and hunter numbers as well as by animals, so they are a reason to read district data and current license rules before planning a mule deer trip.

Montana Fish, Wildlife & Parks publishes harvest estimates built from hunter surveys. We took the statewide rows for elk and mule deer for every year from 2004 through 2025 and set the two species side by side.

In 2004 the mule deer estimate was 64,766 and the elk estimate was 23,255, so hunters took 2.79 mule deer for each elk. By 2025 the mule deer estimate had dropped to 36,729 and the elk estimate had climbed to 27,262, and the ratio stood at 1.35.

The two endpoints hide a shape worth knowing. Mule deer harvest fell to 34,481 in 2014, came back to 55,546 by 2017, and held between 49,856 and 55,546 from 2016 through 2021. Then it fell every year: 42,609 in 2022, 41,377 in 2023, 39,087 in 2024 and 36,729 in 2025. Measured from 2020, when the estimate was 54,751, the 2025 figure is 18,022 lower, a drop of 32.9%. Of the 22 years in the series, only 2014 was lower than 2025.

Elk stayed in a much narrower band. After a low of 20,154 in 2013, the estimate jumped to 30,921 in 2015 and has stayed between 24,533 and 30,921 every year since 2014. From 2020 to 2025 it slipped by 875, from 28,137 to 27,262.

Between 2004 and 2025 the mule deer estimate lost 28,037 animals. The doe harvest accounts for 15,537 of them, a fall from 19,960 to 4,423. The buck harvest fell by 11,923, from 44,161 to 32,238, and the fawn harvest by 577, from 645 to 68. Bucks made up 68.2% of the mule deer harvest in 2004 and 87.8% in 2025.

Elk went the other way in the adult classes. Bulls rose from 10,712 to 13,877 and cows from 11,214 to 12,947, while calves, a small class in both years, fell from 1,329 to 438.

The doe figure should be read next to licensing. FWP describes the deer B license as an antlerless deer license. In its December 2025 announcement of the 2026 and 2027 regulations, FWP says deer B licenses sold in 2024 were the lowest since 2016 and calls that reduction "a direct response to declining mule deer numbers." Fewer antlerless tags means fewer does killed whether or not the does are still out there, and a harvest survey cannot separate those two things. Our table has only the 2004 and 2025 endpoints, so we cannot show that the doe harvest and the license cuts moved together year by year. What we can say is that a large fall in doe harvest sits alongside a documented cut in antlerless licensing.

Nonresident hunters killed an estimated 14,340 mule deer in 2004 and 11,659 in 2025, a drop of 2,681, or 18.7%. Resident hunters went from 50,426 to 25,070, a drop of 25,356, or 50.3%. Nonresidents therefore accounted for 31.7% of the 2025 mule deer harvest, up from 22.1% in 2004. On elk, the nonresident estimate rose from 3,926 to 5,732 (46.0%) and the resident estimate from 19,329 to 21,530 (11.4%), which lifted the nonresident share from 16.9% to 21.0%.

That describes who killed the animals. Who was crowding whom is a separate question, and the survey figures we used include no counts of hunters or licenses sold, so we cannot say whether nonresident hunters were more successful than before or simply held a steadier number of tags while resident harvest fell.

FWP's own account is that staff and commissioners have heard growing concern about hunting pressure from nonresident hunters, particularly in eastern Montana. Its December 2025 announcement says the commission approved a cap on the sale of a particular nonresident deer license, which FWP says would cut the number available to nonresidents by about 2,500. It also notes that changes by the 2023 Legislature limited nonresidents to one deer B license, or two for a nonresident holding a combination license. Our data end with the 2025 season, so the December 2025 changes are not in them.

Every figure here is an estimate from a hunter survey, so single years can wobble and the multi-year shape deserves more trust than any one year. We used only the agency's statewide rows for each species, which combine residents and nonresidents and all sex and age classes. We left out the district rows so that nothing is counted twice.

Each percentage compares two single years. A different pair of years would give a different number: mule deer harvest was lower in 2014 than in 2025, and the 43.3% drop from 2004 owes something to how high 2004 was.

The larger limit is that harvest is not population. The estimate moves with license quotas and the number of hunters as well as with the animals. A falling mule deer harvest lines up with the concern FWP describes about declining mule deer numbers, but the harvest line alone does not measure the herd. Our seven-state whitetail look treats a falling harvest the same way, as several things at once, including herd size and antlerless policy.

The statewide elk figure is a steady-harvest signal. The estimate has stayed between 24,533 and 30,921 since 2014, so no statewide collapse shows up in what hunters killed. It cannot speak for the district you plan to hunt, so open FWP's harvest estimates and read that district's own multi-year rows before you commit.

For mule deer, plan around the rules as they stand now. FWP says that in 2026 and 2027 most mule deer B licenses will be valid only on private land. If your plan depends on a B license or on public ground, read the current regulations first. A nonresident should also read the cap and the one-B-license rule described above.

When you compare a district to the state, look at whether its license quota changed in the same years. A harvest drop that follows a quota cut may be mostly a licensing story. A drop with a steady quota is a stronger hint that something changed on the ground, though still only a hint. For more on reading agency deer numbers without overreading them, see FDR's field guide to government deer data.