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Show Dixie Deer Herd Viewed Strong. Forage Depleted Officials of the Dixie National Forest, the Utah State Fish and. Game Department and the Bur- eau of Land Management District 4, have just completed a survey of the winter range conditions of the Dixie Deer Herd. The work was done cooperatively between j the three agencies and consisted of a careful examination of the conditions and vigor of the browse plants, a check on the condition of the soil and a count of the deer seen In these sample areas'. Beginning on Leap Creek near Pintura the group worked on Leeds Creek and Yant Flat. Beaver Bea-ver Dam Wash, Moody Wash, Diamond Valley, Pinto and at New Harmony. No snow was found on any of these sample areas and the deer were quite widely scattered. In general the 1 most important bro-vse plants on these game winter ranges' are bitterbrush, cliffrose, sagebrush, quinine bush and ceanothus. In many places these plants were found to be depleted and in low vigor because of overuse. This condition results in decreased! forage production which In turn affects the number of deer which can use the area. One objective of proper game management should be to keep the number of deer and their food supply In balance so that the maximum amount of forage may be produced. I The number of tfeer actually-seen actually-seen on sample areas which were counted last year was very similar sim-ilar to the 1955 count. This indicates in-dicates that the deer herd has i not fluctuated in numbers to any I extent in the past year. A total of 2882 deer were seen during I the survey which Is only a small per cent of the entire deer herd. Those taking part in the survey sur-vey were Reed Henderson. Pan-gultch; Pan-gultch; William Moyes. Hurricane; Hurri-cane; Claude Macfarlane. Cedar City, and Vernon Leavitt, Gun-lock, Gun-lock, of the Utah Fish and Game Department; Lee Hall and Jens Jensen. Cedar City, of the Bureau of Land Management, and Bry-son Bry-son Cook, Enterprise. Foyer Ol- 'sen. Cedar City and Floyd C. Noel. St. George, of Ihe U. S. For- ! est Service. |