Transplant mule deer study Utah

coyoteslayer · Mar 21, 2017

A few years ago, there was constant updates on the transplant mule deer study in Utah. There were moving the deer from the Parowan area to the Fillmore area. Later they moved some deer from Antelope Island to different areas also. Has there been any follow up on this study? I followed it close and found it very interesting, but have not heard anything about it recently. Thank you

YELUM · Mar 21, 2017

The 50 does that were moved to the elk ridge unit, and 50 that went to the oak creek unit, in Jan of 2014, would have dropped their island bred fawns that same year. Those fawns, if alive, will be 3 this summer. If any of them make it for a couple more years, there should be some good bucks. Hopefully 3 or 4 will make it.

Yelum

YBU

1911 · Mar 23, 2017

My gut says it was a waste of time and money. If it was otherwise, they'd talk louder about it.

ridgetops · Mar 23, 2017

I asked the same question a couple months ago on another forum and this is the response I got from Elkfromabove:

elkfromabove; said:
"I'm sorry for the delay, but I couldn't find anything by googling nor were there any updates available at the Southern Utah DWR office. I finally had the DWR office email a message to Dave Smedley and he called me 1 week ago and said he would look through his emails to see if he could find later updates. He did say that he wrote a thesis for his degree (I don't know which one), and I asked if I could have a copy, but he said that is copywritten material which is not yet available to the general public, especially social media. I suspect that it is still being studied by the DWR, BYU, and other entities for the info it could provide relating to future deer management. In any case I told him that I wouldn't publish it on this forum and that if he felt or found out that he couldn't even give me a copy then I could just wait on that one like the rest of you.

Apparently he hasn't been able to find copies of updates, so I'll contact him again and some of the other people on the update list and see where that gets me. In any case, there won't be any updates for the last year or so. We'll just have to see the overall results through the DWR classifications and population figures which should be out in about a month. Stay tuned!

FWIW, Dave is now a DWR biologist living in the Fillmore area, so that project has proven to be a major part of his life!"

Proud member of the Wolfpack!

coyoteslayer · Mar 24, 2017

Thanks for the update. Please let me know if you find come across and information. I know back in the 80's, they transplanted some deer to an area I hunted, and we would some collared deer for years after the transplant. Are any of you seeing the collared deer while out in the field? It may be a pipe dream, but I still believe transplanting does is better than shooting them, and could be done pretty cheap if they would allow the sportsman to help. Heck for my dedicated hunter hours, I would go grab a load of deer and transport them to a new area. When they transplanted these back in the 80's, they just used a drop net around a hay stack, Then hauled the deer to the new area in horse trailers. Not near the cost of using a helicopter.

YELUM · Mar 24, 2017

While on my wifes elk hunt on the Elk ridge unit, I saw 3 collard does, all with twins. They would have been the 3rd crop of fawns from these does, since being moved.

Yelum

YBU