LARAMIE, Wyo. (AP) — The Wyoming Game and Fish Department has completed the first part of its project to improve mule deer habitat in the southern Bighorn Mountains.

Wyoming Public Radio reports that the agency and the Bureau of Land Management have been working on a crucial winter range for the Upper Powder River Mule Deer herd since 2011, after a 2006 wildfire wiped out much of its food source.

Game and Fish has been working to remove conifers to prevent a similar event in case of another forest fire.

Todd Caltrider, Game and Fish terrestrial habitat biologist, said over the past two years they thinned and removed juniper, ponderosa pine and limber pine across 870 acres of deer habitat.

Caltrider said the herd's population has been down the past several years.

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