Folks,
The State of Utah used a documentary back around 1959 to encourage out of state hunters to come to Utah to hunt mule deer, for two reasons. The State's wildlands were in deplorable condition due, accord to this document, to over grazing by sheep, cattle and deer. (In those days there were very few elk.) Secondly they wanted to enough people to come here and spend their time and money in Utah. That is very clear throughout the film.
The old timers tell me you could legally kill seven deer if you got every tag possible. (not sure if that is true or not)
Never the less, this documentary was titled "Bucks, Bucks, Bucks".
It is filled with interesting opinions and what the author claims was stated by Utah's State and Federal Biologist (Ecologists) as scientific fact. Of course, we all have our own opinion on what scientific fact is but be that as it may, he gives us his beliefs.
In my opinion, anything said on this video can be used for or against any of the current discussion and arguments about mule deer and sport hunting.
If you've heard me ever say, at one time Utah had identified 62 deer herd units and that is the number of units we could and should be managing to, this video will confirm that number. It won't confirm a single thing about whether it's a good plan to manage by unit, just the authors opinion and apparently it was the opinion of the professionals he was getting his information from at that time.
It also seems to suggest that even with deplorable range/habitat conditions the deer population can be far larger than what I believe it is today, if 459 bucks in Big John Flat on the Beaver Mountain is any indication of what the population was in 1959.
However, this documentary was made because they believed we had "too many deer" and not too few, your going to be hearing all the reasons why we need to kill as many doe, fawn and bucks and we can, not at all what some of us are advocating today.
Does it make me make me nervous to share this documentary? Absolutely not. I'm the kind of guy that wants a bright light focused on all the facts and factors and will let the chips fall where they may. My theory is and always has been, the more we all know, the better decisions we'll all make. And if we all had equal knowledge we agree on a lot more things than we do now.
I've had a number of requests this week for a copy of this "poor quality DVD" of the documentary". I can copy 8 a time and will make as many copies as y'all want, for free, I'll pay for the reproduction but the shipping costs could get to be a problem. If I get too many more requests what I may do is send 20 or 30 to the Cabelas and Sportsmen Warehouse Stores and ask them to hand them out to anyone interested. Please don't offer to send me money or checks, I don't want to be bothered with the mess. If it gets out of hand, I'll let you know.
For now, PM me your address and I'll put one in the mail for you.
Now, I'm off the NFR, see you Monday.
DC
