accurate deer counts?

[desertdeer]

can anyone tell me how the dwr does their counts? are they done on winter range from the road? i have never seen one done here in utah and was wondering how they come up with their numbers. i have been in arizona and seen them fly over a unit in helicopters crisscrossing a unit and spending lots of time doing counts. i have seen the same in colorado. i feel like if they go to micro units they will be forced to do a more accurate count to truly manage a unit. will they do it?

 

[dillon]

Honestly I don't know how they do their count for certain. I did it once in the spring with a conservation officer. It was fun. We basically drove all over the Paunsaugunt in his truck and when we saw deer he dictated adult or yearling into his recorder. Then I wrote down the number of each and the UTM's. We stayed on the dirt roads the whole day. I remember my butt hurt by the time I got home.

Utah may do the helicopter thing once in a while, especially on limited entry areas for elk or once in a lifetime species, but I don't think they do it so much for deer. If I am not mistaken they do fly each unit every three years to some degree.

I agree that micro managing the units would make them have to do better counts to avoid large errors.

Utah does an okay job managing the herd, but they could do more if they had more funding.