Results of Utah Wildlife Board Mtg.
dahlmer
12/2/10 1:38pm
Utah wildlife boards votes for option 2 and votes to eliminate statewide archery.
17,917
I'm not against it, just think we really need some more drastic measures than what's proposed or in place. Hope this is a good start. (???)
Any talk on Dedicated Hunters?
I know statewide archers won't be happy with this, but this is not a surprise to me.
Just my $.02.
OPEN faced bribe?
Beyond that....the state gives the tags to the expo/sfw....the expo/sfw sells a bunch of tags for a ton of money and SFW writes out a check to the DWR? Why not cut out the middle man? As I type this I can't help but think of money laundering.....hunting in europe......I think I have royalty in my blood.....better check my genealogy....maybe I am related to the royal peay day family...
The political bs of the Wildlife Board needs to come to a hault...it needs to go away. It does NO good for the wildlife of Utah or the hunters of this state...
First, the impetus to introduce these porposals came from the wildlife board itself. The DWR was simply responding to the demands the board placed on them. The board members claimed that no outside group influenced this. The board also recommended and wanted smaller units when they asked the division to put this together and options 1 and 3 were ideas provided by the division as alternatives the what the board had requested. It appeared to me that the four board members in favor of this measure had already made their decision before the meeting started and had little interest in anything the DWR had to say. The DWR reiterated several times that none of these proposals would improve deer herds.
Second, the division did talk about habitat improvements and funding because of the claims that these efforts were not helping. They indicated that the effects of thesee efforts would not be realized for 5, 10, or even 20 years in some cases. Predators are a factor as are vehicle collisions, but coyotes seem to be the biggest concern. During a discussion of extending trap check limits the biologists indicated that there are some sticky issues there and more important is killing coyotes during critical periods (March - June). That issue was put on the docket for the upcoming RAC.
Third, the president of SFW providing the board with a check during these procedings was at best tactless and self serving and at worst an indication of undue influence. It was wholly inapropriate and offensive and should not have happened.
Finally, the SE RAC amended the proposals to include an antler restriction measure. It was killed by the board, but there was a few interesting comments regarding it. The biologist stated that there was biological reason NOT to have an antler restriction. The reason was two fold. It had the opposite effect that most desired and while more young buck survived, fewer mature bucks survived leading to breeding issues during the rut. Second, it leads to an increase in left animals. He cited walking down Nash Wash (Book Cliffs) during its era of 3 point or better restrictions and finding 20+ deer that had been shot and left.
There were other interesting items, but this post is already too long. Overall it was an interesting meeting with a lot of information. Ultimately I was disappointed with the boards decision, but I am hopeful that the efforts of the DWR will lead to improved deer herds and greater capacity in the future.
So in short:
1. This will not help and deer hunting will not improve
2. They will charge us more money to shore up THEIR losses
3. Less people will get to hunt and that means less people to patrol. A WIN/WIN for THEM!
4. MORE LE units are inevitable
From the SL Trib summery:
“None of these options will increase deer populations,” state wildlife program coordinator Anis Aoude said.(so did Jim Karpowitz in his open letter)
"The cost of a deer-hunting permit is projected to increase nearly 17 percent to offset the revenue lost by selling fewer of them — to nearly $41 from $35 for state residents and to about $307 from $263 for nonresidents."
"The DWR said the plan would help evenly distribute hunting pressure on deer herds in an effort to increase the ratio of bucks to does in the field to 18-to-100. The number of permits available for a particular unit would fall if its buck-to-doe ratio falls below 18-to-100, while it would rise if the ratio exceeds 25-to-100." (Read: LE Units and tags for them to sell)
"reflecting a belief that none of the measures included in any of the plans would actually help restore the declining deer population — the one concern everybody shared."
"But members of the board said they had to start somewhere."
Somewhere!!?? Taking away our tags and charging us more money when you don't think it's going to help is the first place to start!! Forgive me, but if any of you still have an ounce of faith in these thugs you may need your head checked! And all this to blatantly create LE units in broad daylight! I was trying to give them the benefit of the doubt before, but everything I worried about has developed.
I guess I might have been on to something here >
<END RANT>
"General-season archery hunters will no longer be allowed to hunt across Utah. Instead, they'll have to hunt on the unit they obtained a permit for."
As far as hunting goes, it depends on your perspective. If you are a person who only wants to shoot big bucks, it''ll enable you to see a few more bucks and possibly a few bigger bucks when you finally do draw a tag. Based on UDWR survey results, the majority of hunters in the state want the opportunity to hunt more than they want big bucks.
The minority has won, for now.
Should we choose to close our eyes to this type of behavior from those whom we trust the health of our wildlife to for the sake of a few more bucks with bigger headgear, well then we deserve what we get. We all want to see more bucks and antlers, but that should certainly NOT come at the expense of the creatures we love to hunt, nor should it be a catalyst that sends our numbers plummeting until, in the end, only the wealthy and influential walk the woods with tags in hand...
i do not think there are enough bucks to breed the does we have. we need to raise the number of bucks imo to raise the fawn crop.
everyone is crying that more bucks does not equal more deer. while in a way it is true and i see what your talking about but your overlooking the fact that bucks breed the does and if a doe is not bred it is a bigger waste of feed than a buck is.. that unbred doe is a worthless feed burner.
i know this is not cattle production and its different but its the same concept. in the cattle industry when you have all your cows in a pasture lets say 200 cows in a 3000 acre pasture and the rancher usually shoots for one bull to 15-20 cows. which is 5-6 bulls per one hundred cows. they do not get 100 percent calf crop. we normally get around0 80-90 percwent on good years. while yes that is only 5-6 per 100 they are in a controlled enviroment have a longer breeding season, they water at the smae place so the bulls and cows are constantyl in contact.
now lets look at deer they have no boundaries, many waters, and many many acres to roam. if there is not enough bucks to spread out to those does than there is gonna be lower fawn crops.i read somewhere it was aaround 60/100 fawn to does and if that is true than 40 does are doing nothing but wasting feed. if they do not breed they are in fact more worthless than good. so if you are having more bucks doing the breeding the chances that those 40 unbred does per 100 go unbred should drop. if only 60% of your breeders are actually breeding its quite counter productive . more bucks = more bred does. more bred does=more fawns. more fawns = more deer. now of course to many bucks is not good either, but if you can find the right balance than i believe it will help raise populations.
this along with habitat restoration would do alot to help the deer herd.
habitat imo is the biggest prob we have.these droughty years have taken a toll on grasses and plants and springs. there is not enough feed or water to support more deer in many areas ...
if the feed is bad and the weather is rough it makes chanes a doe gets bred drop. if there is more feed the deer should in return be healthier if they're healthier they should breed back better. so if major habitat restoration efforts are made. like more fires are allowed to burn and more acres are reseeded. more pinions junipers and sage are eliminated than more feed is obviously grown. its obvious imo, ranchers have figured this out why cant the dwr and other people figure this out.
+ you guys are saying the dwr thinks its a bad idea.... well considering they arent doing a very good a job on our current deer system i think there credibility is 0 anyway!
the cut tags is to increase the buck ratio. after the ratios raise to a more effective number than you will begin to increase tag numbers.
also if you can more accuratley manage and manipulate the healthy amount of tags given to a specific area a i dont see the harm in it.
Yeah I saw that but is it going to be in the same 29 units as the rifle hunt or are they going to do it like last year where they did it out of the 5 regions? I take it that by the sounds of it that it will be out of the same 29 units which sucks bad. :>/
IMO, the focus should be on fawn recruitment along with retention of mature deer, and on hunter recruitment along with retention of existing hunters. What the Wildlife Board did last week does NEITHER. It hurts deer recruitment/retention AND it hurts hunter recruitment/retention. Nonsensical.
but even on the henries where 50 bucks too 100 does is usually the case the herd there has grown the last 10 years.
mostly what i am trying to say is raising from 15 to 18 bucks is not necessarily a bad thing, and in fact looking at the dwrs fawn /buck/ doe ratios it could actually help fawn crops.
It seems to me that we all understand that it's not the buck to doe ratio that's the solution to our problem, it's the number of fawns that we need to carry through the winter to increase the population. I think that increasing that buck:doe ratio has some merit & I hope that we will see some initial benefits to our deer herd, but it is not a long term solution.
Given the WBs recent reputation, they'll roll out a new plan in a couple years anyway when the herd population doesn't immediately shoot up to objective like they thought (or maybe were told by SFW) it would. Look at me being a conspiracy theorist!!! :-$
Case in point:
- The Ogden unit has a three year average of 17 bucks per 100 does but also has one of the highest fawn to doe ratio averages over that same period of 89 fawns per 100 does.
- Paunsaugunt has a three year average of 55 bucks per 100 does & has a fawn to doe ratio of at 53 fawns per 100 does which is typical of all the limited entry units except Henry Mountains (72).
Maybe it’s because the bucks can spend more time breeding than competing (just a thought :-k ).
I completely agree with Proutdoors, we should direct the majority of our attention to fawn retention. I like that the State is buying up winter range & designating it as WMAs, etc. The poor deer need somewhere to go since we’ve developed most of their winter range for our homes. I hope to see further improvement in the Ogden herd since the purchase & development of the Middle Fork WMA. I'd rather see fawn numbers greater than 75-80 fawns per 100 does than 40-50 bucks per 100 does... that's the future of the herd.