This cold snap is already causing real problems down in Texas, where exotic animals and even whitetails aren’t used to this level of prolonged freezing. Ranchers and hunters are already finding storm-related mortalities on the landscape; it brings back memories of the historic February 2021 Texas winter storm, when extreme cold and ice decimated exotic herds with reports of over 2,000 axis deer lost on some ranches and roughly 60 percent of blackbuck antelope gone in affected herds, and exotic breeders estimated hundreds to thousands of exotics like wildebeest, gemsbok, and other non-native ungulates froze to death across the Hill Country alongside scattered deer losses as owners counted up the toll. Let’s hope it’s not that bad!
I wasn’t aware that winters set those game ranches back this much.