Wildlife biologists have a nickname for mountain mahogany, the shrub that mule deer and elk will seek out above almost anything else on the landscape. They call it “chocolate” for those animals, and Wyoming’s wildlife can’t get enough of it.
A Game and Fish Department habitat biologist is seeing dramatic results from a hands-on restoration project in the Laramie Range, where crews armed with bladed saws are reviving aging mountain mahogany stands that big game depends on for survival.
Mountain mahogany ranks among the most important plants in big game diets across the West, prized for the tender young shoots it produces. Biologists call them leaders and they’re what deer and elk are actually after, flexible and nutrient-dense growth that the animals find more digestible than anything the mature shrub produces. But decades of fire suppression have left a lot of the plant’s throughout Wyoming old and woody, generating a fraction of what they once did.
Fire is the most effective reset for this kind of habitat, but prescribed burns carry real risk and a patchwork of mixed land ownership makes them hard to execute. Plus steep and rocky terrain rules out heavy equipment, so Habitat Biologist Willow Bish and her crews get after it by hand.
Since 2018, the project has treated roughly 1,500 acres on the north face of the Laramie Range, cutting away dead shrub material to unlock new growth. The plant response has been immediate.
“We get anywhere from a three to tenfold increase in the weight of leaders on a treated shrub versus an untreated shrub. We get almost instantaneous positive results from this particular treatment.” – Willow Bish
Even in dry years treated shrubs outperform untreated ones. Wyoming’s mule deer numbers have been sliding for years, and habitat is a central reason why. Scaling this project will take funding, landowner cooperation, and broader community investment.
