Before It's Too Late! I recently had the opportunity to tag along with my father who was lucky enough to draw the Sportsman in Utah, which allows him to hunt any deer unit in the state from the time period of September 1, 2002 to December 31, 2002. I knew that this would be a once in a life time opportunity, so I wanted to observe as best I could lhe different deer herds, and habitat available to them. What I found over these last few months has certainly confirmed everything that most hunters have believed for years now. (My dad did not kill a buck of a life time, as he could not find a real good buck). First, and most obvious was the lack of deer in numbers. The only areas there seemed to have been adequate numbers of deer was in the limited entry areas, and even in these areas the number num-ber of does were not impressive. I have always questioned the Division of Wildlife Resources (DWR) and their count on Utah deer herds. Now I can offer some of my own numbers, as I have spent many days in various Utah deer ranges. Because the Beaver Mountain (Dog Valley) area is where I have grown up and hunted since I was a young boy, my dad and I took advantage advan-tage of being able to hunt this area when all other hunts were over. In the DWR's most recent report in the 2000 hunting season sea-son they claim that on the Beaver Unit 1,282 bucks were killed and 224 antlerless deer (I will get to the brilliant idea of killing antlerless deer in a minute) were killed. This was a total of 1,506 deer killed by what they say were 2,900 hunters in the field. This was a 52 success rate for the Beaver area. The DWR claims that they have the buck to doe ratio at (See LETTERS on page 3A) r Letters To The Editor j. From Page 2 A !' around 15 buks per hundred i does. If this is true, then for the i 1,2872 bucks killed on the Beaver Unit, there should be j 1,282 bucks at 15 does, which 'would equal 19,230 does. I have been to almost every part of the Beaver Mountains, both high, mid-level and low, so that I could not be told I was looking in the wrong place. If there were 19,230 does in this Beaver Unit, I will kiss the whole DWR . staff's grandma's feet. From the counts I could imake, there were probably not even a fourth of this total. I " remember driving into the Dog ' Valley mountains during and after deer hunts and seeing hundreds hun-dreds of deer in a group trailing up the hillside. The feed was not gone or being overeaten and . the deer were not dying of star-' star-' vation. Now at a time when the " DWR claims that the deer herds are down and the drought is , making life tough on the deer, the predators are killing more and more deer, the DWR still goes ahead with a great plan, and kills off 224 more antlerless deer in the Beaver area alone. Yes, there was still an antlerless . hunt going on this year as we were out hunting. I guess the ' DWR figures if they kill off more antlerless deer, they will eventually get that buck to doe ratio where they want it. The ' sad thing is, that 2 or 3 bucks and 45 does will not give us 2,900 hunters much to look for-' for-' ward to in the Beaver Unit. In an article published by the DWR before the archery hunt ; began in August 2002, the DWR estimated the number of deer in . Utah to be at around 300,000. They went on to say that this was about 20,000 deer under last years estimate. (Another good reason to be having more , antlerless hunts). The DWR ' went on to say the number of bucks to does is good, with most of our general areas on or over the objective of 15 buck per 100 does. The DWR went on to say that about 70,000 hunters were expected afield for Utah's most popular hunt (rifle hunt). As I , give you these numbers remember remem-ber this is just for the general rifle hunt. This does not include the number of bucks killed on " the archery, black powder or any of the limited units. If there are 300,000 deer as the DWR claims and we will . assume tha these are all antler-' antler-' less deer for this illustration, then there should be around 20,000 bucks if there are 15 bucks per every 100 does as the publication stated. I went through and looked at hunter success during the general season sea-son rifle hunt over the past five years and it has averaged right around 30. If you take the number of hunters in the field for just the general season rifle hunt (70,000) and give them a success rate of 30 as in past years, you will find that this would be the killing of 21,000 bucks. With there only being 20,000 bucks to start with, no wonder my dad and I had such a hard time finding any quality bucks or any bucks for that matter. mat-ter. I feel it is time the DWR quits trying to find ways to smooth things over for one more year. It is easy for any hunter to see that the deer herd is down, bucks and does. The reasons are simple, there are too many hunters killing too few deer, too many predators killing too few deer, too many cars on the road hitting hit-ting too few deer, to many poachers killing too few deer, to many filling of tags for 90-year-old grandmas and others who do not actually even hunt. I think you get the picture, there are far too many killings one way or another for the few deer we have left. The latest article I read by the DWR claims they are looking at dividing the state up into 25 units, and managing deer herds. I feel this is a step in the right diection, but it will still do no good if you put too many hunters and predators chasing too few deer. The article concerned con-cerned me because in one sentence sen-tence the DWR states they are looking to manage the deer units and deer herds, but in the next sentence they say they want families to continue to hunt and enjoy (who really enjoys hunting hunt-ing nothing anyway?). I am sorry DWR, all the families fam-ilies in Utah cannot continue to enjoy this because you have run the herd down too far to continue contin-ue the number of hunters. As I look at your application, 10 people peo-ple can still put in together to hunt, which allows families to still put in together. If you want every family in Utah to have that family hunting experience, maybe you better pick one great camping area and let all those families enjoy walking around seeing no deer. For the rest of us who actually like the possibility of seeing a quality buck, lets begin moving in the right direction. direc-tion. Lets quit trying to find ways to get around the problem and start fixing the problem. If there are too few deer, then you need to manage those numbers like you want to keep deer around for the future. It's time you set up some regions, count the actual deer herd, not the prints and pellets on the ground in those regions and manage the hunters allowed into these units. Manage the predator situation so that once again we may see those 100's of animals running in our mountains. Let's do the right thing, not the money thing such as allowing NBA stars a way to give you a bunch of money to buy a bunch of extra tags for kids, (I wonder if this option is available to all who have the money?) or selling extra tags to shoot a few unwanted does. The hunters want you to manage the deer herds in Utah before we have no deer to manage, before it's too late. Curtis Barney Panguitch