Conservationists and researchers say wildfire control efforts in B.C. may be causing mule deer numbers to decline.

That possibility is being explored in a new study of the animals beginning in southern B.C.

Researchers are going into areas scorched by wildfire in recent years to see how the landscape affects the population and movement of deer.

“It’s all about food,” UBC-Okanagan professor Adam T. Ford explained to Radio West host Sarah Penton.

“We know mule deer are very choosy eaters, and fire creates open canopies, so it opens up the forest and then you get the flush of green growth in the understory [Ecological term referring to