Utah kills 47% of bucks a year...

travishunter3006 · Jan 31, 2012

Based on the numbers they provided at wildlife.utah.gov that is!

It was a big bodied 2 point. (this is my signature)

travishunter3006 · Jan 31, 2012

I realize the #'s are kind of hard to read. Shoot me a PM with your email and I'll send you the excell doc I made.

It was a big bodied 2 point. (this is my signature)

MDQ · Jan 31, 2012

Were the units with +100% of bucks killed counting does pregnant with male fawns?

travishunter3006 · Jan 31, 2012

heck ya! DWR counts even the ones in the belly!!! LOL

It was a big bodied 2 point. (this is my signature)

swbuckmaster · Jan 31, 2012

Unfortunately those bucks in the bellies are shot during the depredation doe hunts and tossed in the weeds with the gut pile. Thus the reason the deer population is in a downward spiral.

rperkins · Jan 31, 2012

Their not 10,900 deer on the Beaver Unit, their lucky if their 2000, DWR got to prove it!!!!!!!! sorry I do 't belive them.

NO MORE TRUST IN THE DWR & THE BOARD

BowHuntr · Jan 31, 2012

I wonder with the Division's response to this would be?

Are you attempting to show this to anyone but the MM community Travis?

BowHuntr

soutahhunter · Jan 31, 2012

Perkins does not believe their are that many deer on the beaver, does anyone else think their deer numbers are correct. My feeling is they are all over projected and the numbers are not even close. Take some dedicated hunters out and prove to us the numbers are out their, we must not know where to look.

El_Matador · Jan 31, 2012

Is that supposed to be a high percentage? I guess I don't see a problem with it. All of the units in Utah have more than enough bucks to breed all the does. If 53% are surviving the hunts we should have plenty of older age classes left to hunt next year. Is there any data to compare this to?

travishunter3006 · Jan 31, 2012

YES, this was sent to Anis Aoude and the main DWR email they provide on their website. I am interested in seeing their response...

It was a big bodied 2 point. (this is my signature)

travishunter3006 · Jan 31, 2012

>Is that supposed to be a
>high percentage? I guess
>I don't see a problem
>with it. All of
>the units in Utah have
>more than enough bucks to
>breed all the does.
>If 53% are surviving the
>hunts we should have plenty
>of older age classes left
>to hunt next year.
>Is there any data to
>compare this to?

What Data are you talking about?

It was a big bodied 2 point. (this is my signature)

El_Matador · Jan 31, 2012

Data that would indicate whether 47% is good, bad, or indifferent. The original post seems to imply that 47% is a lot of deer to kill, but is that an assumption or can it be compared to previous years, other states, healthy herds vs. unhealthy, etc.?

travishunter3006 · Jan 31, 2012

If I didn't have to work in 45 mins I would go and try to find other state's data or data of Utah's past seasons, etc.

I agree with what you said in your 1st post about 535 of the bucks getting the job done.

It was a big bodied 2 point. (this is my signature)

ridgetops · Jan 31, 2012

I was talking about this just the other day on another site. I think the hunter to available buck ratio should be looked at very closely when setting tag numbers. I personally would like it be set somewhere between 1:1 & 1.5:1 hunter to buck ratio. Some of these units are at 4 hunter per 1 available buck. No wonder the success rates are as low as they are.

There's always next year

gznokes · Jan 31, 2012

Here's a famous quote "There are lies, dirty lies, and statistics."

Somewhere in there I think a statistician would explain away your methodology. HOWEVER, I like the concept of what you have done and I like the way you are trying to get a few questions answered on the basis of available statistics. I like your idea of bucks per hunter ratio. I've never thought of it that way. It also speaks to the need for them to quit giving us such crap stats. We need good data sets.

Well done I like your ideas. I think there are some trends and truths in your analysis. Keep us posted if you get to the bottom of any of this.

BigMedicine · Jan 31, 2012

So is this good or bad? Here on MM I hear that the DWR's pop estimates are way too high that there is no way there are that many deer available to harvest. Now it looks like you are complaining that there are that many deer available according to harvest stats? I guess maybe I don't get the argument/accusation? What is the implied DWR/Wildlife Board/SFW/Wealthy Landowner/Guide and Outfitter/CWMU operator conspiracy theory on this one?

If 50% of the bucks get killed every year that means 50% live, I would love it if 50% of the yearlings made it to 2 yr olds, 50% of those to 3 year olds etc.

travishunter3006 · Jan 31, 2012

There is no argument or accusation here BigMedicine... This is an information only thread. I think it will give the DWR something to think about when they issue tags. I know that it it is impossible to kill more than 100% of the bucks in any given area, but its just data compiled and computed that they gave out.

It was a big bodied 2 point. (this is my signature)

Zeke · Feb 1, 2012

Years ago, before LE elk hunting, the F&G routinely sold far more bull elk tags than the total bull elk population in the State. There was a lot of opportunity (pressure) and low success and far too many elk killed to grow the herds. Back then you'd see hundreds of old cows before you'd find a bull.

I don't think we're quite to that point with our deer but we're getting close. I also think the actual deer numbers are way lower than the statistics.

Thanks for the info,
Zeke

hornsoup · Feb 1, 2012

I took the shed antler course on the dwr web site. One of the questions was " on a normal year what percentage of fawns do not make the winter". It says 40% do not. Lets say 50% of those fawns are bucks. Now take your 47% and add 20% more to that, that makes 67% every year on a average winter!

Cam@strawberry · Feb 1, 2012

47% + winter kill + poaching + road kill + predation= VERY VERY FEW DEER!!!

travishunter3006 · Feb 1, 2012

Thanks for the responses. If you guys would like, I'm going to put together a little spread sheet on predation #'s and road kill.

We will see how many deer are really killed in Utah every year. (SUPER ROUGH ESTIMATES)

It was a big bodied 2 point. (this is my signature)

MTQuivers · Feb 3, 2012

40% of fawns dying and half being bucks does not add 20% to the overall buck harvest because that is 20% of the fawns dying not 20% of the overall bucks.

Thats like saying 99% of all statistics are wrong 50% of the time! It don't make sense!

My take is that if we had more primitive weapon tags (bow muzzloader tags) and less rifle tags success rates would go down and the overall buck harvest would decrease. In this scenario all hunters could still hunt almost every year and less bucks would get harvested increasing age class and numbers for future hunt. It would also allow people to still be in the hills with family and friends every season.

Jason Yates
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