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Show WILDLIFE REPORT UTAH STATE DIVISION OF WILDLIFE RESOURCES f j By Jon Leatham 'r (A I Conservation Officer I 1 r1 I Many eagles and hawks I migrate into Utah to win- ; ter, and their protection i and well-being is of great concern to citizens who I do not want to see these magnificent birds of prey exterminated. The Division of Wildlife Resources is currently conducting eagle surveys throughout the state. These studies will provide pro-vide important information infor-mation as to the numbers num-bers of eagles and their migrational habits. Most ! of the eagles in this area ! have been seen in the ; sagebrush and juniper ! valleys between Moab and S Monticello, where rabbit populations are high, i The public is reminded that all hawks, owls and j eagles are protected by I strict Federal and state j laws and it is a mis- ; demeanor to shoot at I them. J Federal Judge Willis W. Ritter recently sen tenced two men to 90 j days each in the Davis County jail for wounding a Golden Eagle. The public pub-lic is asked to report any violations and also report any dead or wound- I ed eagles to the nearest Federal Wildlife agent or i Conservation officer. I Desert bighorn sheep will sport radio transmitters transmit-ters and colored markings mark-ings as part of a Division Div-ision of Wildlife Resources Re-sources study to determine deter-mine their seasonal movements in south-' south-' eastern Utah. During the first week in December, Division game biologists usedhel- icopters and tranquilizer drugs to immobilize several sev-eral animals so that they could be 'tagged.' Twelve animals were successfully success-fully tagged and relased, in western San Juan Co. The radio equipment is expected to allow game biologists to monitor bighorn big-horn movements from 18 months to two years. Radio monitoring appears to be the only practical way to successfully follow fol-low the sheep because of the extremely rugged terrain ter-rain they inhabit. Nevertheless, Never-theless, the Desert Bighorn Big-horn is doing quite well in the remote areas of San Juan County. Utah hunters have until un-til January 15 to pursue Hungarian and chukar partridge, which are this year's latest upland game bird seasons. Storms scattered the birds early this year; and Wildlife Resources biologists bio-logists report varied success, ranging from slow to average. Cold weather, however, is probably bringing the birds into more concentrated concen-trated populations. The western desert mountains of the state have been best for chukar hunting, while Box Elder and Wasatch Was-atch counties report the most success for Hungarian Hun-garian partridge. The Hungarian partridge part-ridge is a native of eastern east-ern Europe and western Asia, and chukars are from India. The chMar is Utah's third most popular pop-ular upland game bird. |