UT proposed changes?

[Dieseldog]

I was reading some of UT proposed season structure and changes. Noticed on Book Cliffs and San Juan i believe they want to achieve a target deer population of like a 1000? Are they trying to make them elk only areas? Or did i misread it. Will look for the article. I think it was on GoHunt.

 

[geetar]

On a recent trip to the Book Cliffs it seemed that Bison were overtaking elk and deer particularly in the roadless area.

 

[marksjeep]

2021 proposed deer management changes​
UNIT​	CURRENT OBJECTIVE​	NEW OBJECTIVE​
Box Elder	20,000	20,000
Cache	25,000	25,000
Ogden	11,000	11,000
Morgan-South Rich	18,000	16,000
East Canyon	13,500	13,500
Chalk Creek	10,500	12,000
Kamas	8,000	8,000
North Slope	10,000	10,000
South Slope, Yellowstone	13,000	11,000
South Slope, Diamond Mtn/Vernal	15,000	13,000
Book Cliffs	15,000	9,000
Nine Mile	8,500	8,500
San Rafael	1,000	No objective
La Sal, La Sal Mtns	13,000	8,000
La Sal, Dolores Triangle	5,100	3,100
San Juan, Abajo	13,500	13,500
San Juan, Elk Ridge	5,600	1,000
Henry Mtns	2,700	2,700
Central Mtns, Manti	38,000	28,000
Central Mtns, Nebo	22,600	14,000
Wasatch Mtns, West	22,600	22,600
Wasatch Mtns, Currant Creek	20,000	17,000
Wasatch Mtns, Avintaquin	5,000	4,000
Oquirrh-Stansbury	11,600	11,600
West Desert	11,200	11,200
Southwest Desert	4,000	3,500
Fillmore, Pahvant	12,000	7,600
Fillmore, Oak Creek	2,500	2,000
Beaver	13,000	14,000
Monroe	7,500	7,000
Mt. Dutton	2,700	3,200
Plateau, Fishlake	10,000	7,000
Plateau, Thousand Lakes	3,000	1,400
Plateau, Boulder/Kaiparowtis	12,000	8,500
Paunsaugunt	6,500	6,500
Panguitch Lake	10,000	11,000
Zion	15,500	19,100
Pine Valley	16,000	19,500
Total	454,100	403,800

 

[Dieseldog]

Ok i was off see San Juan was 1k and Book cliffs was 9k. Is this to allow expansion of other species ir what's their end game?

 

[Pelican]

Ok i was off see San Juan was 1k and Book cliffs was 9k. Is this to allow expansion of other species ir what's their end game?

They are proposing to reduce or raise the objectives to levels they think are biologically attainable for each unit, not to make room for another species. The UDWR website has a lot more details than the Gohunt article. Basically, they have range monitoring sites that indicate in some units the plant communities are no longer capable of producing enough forage to sustain the number of deer they once thought they could sustain.

 

[wrankin]

After watching some of the videos where the biologists explained the numbers it doesn't look like any of the units are calling for a decrease in population, just an adjustment to the objective. For example, the Nebo unit historically has held around 12-14k deer for the last 10 years, and as numbers increased towards 14k they saw fat reserves decrease which indicated to them that they were nearing the carrying capacity for that unit. I watched the videos about a week ago so the umbers may be a little off but that was the basics of the reasoning behind the adjustments. The numbers were set high for a long time and they really just didn't mean anything because they were not attainable.

 

[verticalslope]

Fillmore Pahvant cut it's deer permits in half in 2020. Long overdue for this unit. I have grown up hunting this unit since the early 80's and the deer population is severly under it's population numbers.