Simple Math

AspenAdventures

AspenAdventures

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Where did the deer go?....in UTAH

1908: Hunting season in Utah closed...no deer

1913: Hunt open again to BUCKS ONLY

1934: Doe hunts open in a few areas

1950: Deer population hits 900,000 and they start the killing as many does as possible....allowing some guys to take up to 7 animals per year.

1961: 132,000 deer harvested

1975: Buck only...no more doe hunts....oooooops something happened to all our deer....what could it be?

1976: Hold a symposium to figure out WHERE DID THE DEER GO?

1983: 82,553 bucks taken

Okay, that is where I want to stop.....even though the rest of the timeline is a dooooosie of a story.

1983....the population is at about 600,000...there are 20 bucks per 100 does.....or 120,000 bucks....and we killed 82,553?


REALLLLLLLLY....you killed 70% of the buck population in one year....allowed doe hunts....cougar kills, car kills......etc......

AND THEN YOU ASK WHERE THE DEER WENT? ARE YOU KIDDING!!!!???



"The penalty good men pay for indifference to public affairs is to be ruled by evil men." - Plato
 
I like the statistics. Where did you dig these up? So what happened between 1908 and 1950 to allow for the deer population to explode to 900,000? How do we do it again?
 
Here is more on the dates......

First hunting license in Utah was issued in 1907. In 1908 to 1912 the legislature closed the season. It was opened again in 1913 and it was "buck only" and an amazing 500 bucks were taken by hunters, many more than expected. Estimated deer population in 1916 was a mere 8500. The deer population began to explode and by 1930 there was an estimated 55,000 deer.

In 1934 first antlerless deer hunt and 1600 doe permits were issued, but most hunters would not buy them. Movie cameras cranked away at hunters buying permits and burning them. In 1936-37 antlerless permits were discontinued. 1938, permits resumed in "special areas." This was the beginning of the "herd unit concept" of deer management. By 1942 there were more than 200,000 deer. In 1951, adoption of statewide "either sex law"

Number of deer taken by hunters?

1945---49,890
1946---53,309
1947---60,813
1948---68,895
1949---60,478
1950---73,419
1951---101,494
1952---90,161
1953---95,003
1954---107,896
1955---111,917
1956---122,585
1957---105,599
1958---117,241
1959---126,315

TOTAL DEER POPULATION: 500,000

I'm not sure where you got the 900,000, but I would like to know.

So if deer were hardly non-existant in the pre 1900s then are deer going back to their natural numbers or do we need a million sheep to jump starting the deer population again like it was done the first time?
 
Along with grazing cattle and sheep you need to add 1080 poison. 1080 was used to kill coyotes intentionaly and a lot of other animals accidentally. Glad it's gone.
 
With the technology we have why don't we have another poison that will kill a yote but without the long term effects?


4b1db2ac644136c4.jpg
 
I enjoy hunting coyotes all year long rather than hunting deer for a week. I don't want any poison brought back!


Traditional >>>------->
 
That's not true at all about 1080, it is extremely targeted. Maybe you are referring to strychnine but certainly not 1080. We could use 1080 today with almost no risk at all of non-targets, it's a lack of understanding that keeps us from using it. Australia still gets to use it and they do it very successfully.
 
Grazing cattle and sheep help the deer herds!

1. Have you hunted region G in Wyoming? Tons of deer...tons of sheep...tons of cattle.

2. Have you hunted Deseret in Utah? Tons of Elk, tons of Cattle, tons of Sheep!

3. Have you hunted some of the large CWMU's in Utah? Tons of cattle, tons of deer, tons of sheep.

4. Were there sheep grazing and cattle grazing permits all over Utah in the 50's? YES....and the herd was still increasing.


You guys are missing the point of the post.....the deer hered was not "managed"....it was whored out to pay for a bunch of biologist who wanted to keep their jobs and needed the tag money for their budgets....SO THEY KILLED HALF OF THE BUCKS IN ONE YEAR>>>>>>>IN ONE YEAR!!!!

AND THEN THEY KEPT ON SELLING DOE TAGS!!!! AND THEN THEY HAVE SYMPOSIUMS TO FIGURE OUT WHAT HAPPENED!!!!!!!

ARE YOU KIDDING!!!!!!!!!??????????

GUESS WHAT HAPPENED YOU SMARTY PANTS!!!!!!

yeah....it was them cattle and sheep

"The penalty good men pay for indifference to public affairs is to be ruled by evil men." - Plato
 
You are right about to many hunters killing off all the deer. I even heard of a doe hunt that still happened over around Parowan. Still happened. Here we are in a time when people are saying where are all the deer. Big complaints about the number of doe also, and we still have a doe hunt. Somewhere you would think that common sense would play a part in all this and it would be recognized that the hunter knows the buck herd is down, the hunter knows the doe herd is down, so lets quit allowing so many hunts and so many tags in oreder to help this whole thing out.
 
>You are right about to many
>hunters killing off all the
>deer. I even heard
>of a doe hunt that
>still happened over around Parowan.
> Still happened. Here
>we are in a time
>when people are saying where
>are all the deer.
>Big complaints about the number
>of doe also, and we
>still have a doe hunt.
> Somewhere you would think
>that common sense would play
>a part in all this
>and it would be recognized
>that the hunter knows the
>buck herd is down, the
>hunter knows the doe herd
>is down, so lets quit
>allowing so many hunts and
>so many tags in oreder
>to help this whole thing
>out.
 
Where did the Deer go? In DWR pocket, it dollars they want, not deer---go and listen to the Big Game Board meeting on Nov.30 and Dec.1 ( But listen real close to th deer part ). If their count not up, their are some jobs are on the line. Listen to it and come back and make a coment.
 
Problem deer on the parowan front doing crop damage? Is that their reasoning? If so I sure as hell haven't seen one green leaf of any crop this time of year. Looks like it's successful 1/3 the deer in summit this year compared to last and plenty of snow to Push the deer out if the high country. Congrats on herd elimination.
 
Your timeline has lots of holes and paints a skewed picture. EVERY crash of the mule deer herd in the 20th century in Utah was caused by two major problems:

1 - Bad winters or drought compounded by problem #2 below...

2 - Winter/summer range that was badly degraded due to over population.

Hunting didn't have anything to do with it. Not the major crashes anyway. You can take any set of data and only report what shows the outcome your prefer. It's only when you look at the WHOLE picture do you get correct story.
 
Over population of what? Not deer! Explain yourself, their a lot feed out their for deer, to many tags, on does and bucks.
Where I hunted their not enough deer to eat the bitter brush that was their. Come on lets here about bad winters & summers. Just listen to the Big Game Board Meeting on Nov.30 and Dec.1 and they talk about going to 15 to 18 bucks to 100 does per unit, instead of what was voted on in 2010, 18 t0 25 bucks per 100 does, so they won't losse any money, they are going to shuffle tags in each unit, so they don't have to cut tags.
The DWR in all for the money, and if you want to get rid of something HIRE THE DWR, they know how to do it, they got rid of the deer.
 
Hunting ABSOLUTELY had EVERYTHING to do with the crashes. The DWR kept the doe hunts going and issued too many buck tags......after a hard winter.

I agree, at some point we may need doe hunts and 100,000 buck tags per year. BUT NOT THIS YEAR.



"The penalty good men pay for indifference to public affairs is to be ruled by evil men." - Plato
 
Just like the last two have said, no matter the reason for the deer herd being low, the fact is that it is very low, and yet DWR continues to have doe hunts and yes they will do alot of tag shuffling to keep those tag numbers up. I remember they had already come up with a predetermined amount of tags to cut. I would guess in some areas in the state they should cut all the tags, but you can bet that will not happen.
 
HOW DOES A POST GET THIS FAR OFF TRACK? THEY KILLED 70% OF THE BUCKS IN ONE YEAR!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

HOW DO YOU NOT GET THAT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!????????????

"The penalty good men pay for indifference to public affairs is to be ruled by evil men." - Plato
 
We still have a hard fight to save the deer. I hope every sportman will email the Big Game Board and the RAC Chairmans and fight for them to stay with the 18 to 25 bucks per 100 does, instead of changing it to 15 to 18 bucks per 100 does. The new board wants to do this and the old board, in 2010 voted for 18 to 25 bucks per 100 does and unit hunting.
 
Sorry aspen, but this is off your topic, but back to the 1080 while hunting elk on the wasatch ran into a government trapper calling coyotes. He asked me on the deer I have seen and I told him very few, he seemed concerned about the deer numbers and said wish they would bring that poison back as it only affects coyotes. But it has been banned and will problebly never be legalized again.
 
Slickrock,

I too like science. That is why I posted the STATS.....70% of the bucks killed in one year!!!!!!!!!!!

If the DWR wants to make me happy....hire some biologists from Colorado and Nevada....they have the SCIENCE right.

"The penalty good men pay for indifference to public affairs is to be ruled by evil men." - Plato
 
Slickrock, Science you say or is it really politics? I know a Forest Service biologist who back in the 80's predicted this dilemma we are now in, with regards to the deer herds. He was cross-wise with the Utah DWR biologists in their theory of deer management. They whined to the upper management of the forest service and he was instructed to back off and was indeed changed assignments.

I think this subject indeed equals global warming to find another biological side of what needs to be done to correct the problem. I really don't have any faith in Utah DWR's ability to correct the deer problem, just because of past practice. I have nothing against them and maybe, just maybe these new young DWR employees can see the light.

I also believe in cycles, but there are a few items which will be almost impossible put in the cycle equation: elk, poison and cheat grass, but we can have a rebound of sorts which good management.
 
slickrock how is their deer management plan working now? you can't kill off 70% of your bucks and have doe hunts, and maintain a good herd of deer.
 
Ralph, take it for what it's worth (probably not much)but the DWR at least has the biologists and historical data to back up the decisions they make. I have been an advocate of the micro management plan for many years. Let's give it a chance & see where we go. I'm just as guilty as the rest of you yahoos about arm chair quarter backing deer management. I'm just saying they (DWR) made some major changes. Let's give it a chance. 30 years ago there was almost zero elk in Ut. look at it what we have now. World class bulls & more f'n elk than we can handle.

Slick

"The Road goes on forever & the Party never Ends"
 
I want to see this new management system work as much as the rest of the hunters. But they have to carefully look at each unit and adjust tags accordingley. They cannot just keep the same amount of tags and divide them up in the 30 units. We have to cut deep to get out from under all the bucks that have been killed in past years, and please lets cut out the doe hunts until the population begins to increase.
 

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