All one has to do is look at the obvious: All public lands I frequent are significantly over grazed. Cattle and sheep devastate the landscape. When prairie is grazed down to bare dirt and "mature" sage brush is only achieving 12"-18" in height that tells you something.
You get a few hard years of drought and/or bad winters with poorly nourished wildlife and you see the results annually.
Add to that equation the over-issue of tags every year and we reap what we sow.
Everybodys acts like it is a mystery but many of us know the truth as we see it.
Its more than that, but certainly some of the things you mentioned for 100% sure.
The area that my buddy lives that's been reduced from over a thousand to 75 has lots of private with limited/controlled grazing. Lots of water as well, plenty of predator control too.
As always, I think the problems are area/region specific and pretty tough to put your finger on any one thing and make generalizations. But, the fact is, pronghorn numbers are down significantly statewide.
In one area near me, I can say its 100% over hunting for wayyyyy too long. Area has dropped from 1100 to 250 tags in 2 years. I watch that unit very closely and have family and friends that have hunted it for 2 decades. I've shot some pronghorn out there as well.
We'll see if things rebound with these tag cuts, but what I've seen is steady declines for the past 15 years.
