Plateau Doe antelope hunt canceled

elkantlers · Sep 25, 2010

My son drew a doe antelope tag for the Plateau unit. Today we received a letter informing us that The DWR is placing an emergency closure on these hunts. The letter says that the unit is well below the 1500 antelope population objective. From what I have heard this is probably a good thing.

I just hope the DWR pulls their heads out and does the same thing with the antlerless elk tags on the fishlake unit. 1000+ antlerless tag for that unit is WAY too many. Who ever is making the decisions on these units need to get out of the office and see what is really happening on the ground.

ELKOHOLIC · Sep 25, 2010

Seen it with my own eyes. We turned in a tag this year. I did a post about this awhile back and I had people telling me that I wasn't looking in the right places. We got an email response to what was going on out there. The "man in charge" said they were investigating a large winter kill last year.

I've got no doubt that the Parker was above objective at a certain point, but can't they be a little conservative? How longs it going to take to build the herd up this time? It would be interesting if someone could chime in and tell us home many were caught and transplanted within the last year. Between that and all the Buck and Doe tags it was just a matter of time.

Muley_73 · Sep 26, 2010

I know that the biologist for that hunt told the DWR that the numbers were too low to support the tags. He was told that their "computer numbers" showed plenty. The only reason the hunt was closed was the sheep herds did not want the sportsmen mad at them for having all of the pronghorn shot. Well I guess they were a little too late!

There are not enough deer in Utah...FOR REAL.

antlerrick · Sep 27, 2010

+1 on the Fishlake antlerless elk! This would be the 2nd year with a ton of permits, and they slayed them last year..

ELKOHOLIC · Sep 27, 2010

And there is the problem. The computer numbers lied once again! And as far as having sportsman mad at the sheep herders??? What did they do go talk to ever individual sheep herder and ask them for there opinion??? There is a lot of politics out there and it's unfortunate that there are groups out there that don't want to see the Antelope succeed. I'm betting that range can hold a lot more goats that the herd objective anyway. That will never change though.

elkantlers · Sep 27, 2010

They shot the fishlake elk herd off about ten years ago and it was just getting back to normal and then they go and do it again. WTH

Verticalslope · Oct 1, 2010

This question is being asked on the Sheep, Goat, Etc. forum here on MM. This is the link.

http://www.monstermuleys.info/dcforum/DCForumID8/4226.html

The speed goat herd has been hurt badly on this unit. The quality and quantity has really declined over the past five years.

4000fps · Oct 1, 2010

Man, is all western management bad? Colorado needs to shut down some hunts (deer) but they won't. Take unit 44 for example. The deer herd numbers are so low in that unit, that they are only giving out 15 buck tags for 3rd season. Shut down the hunt already. Kudos to UT for having the balls to do it, but shame on them for letting it get that bad in the first place.