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Show Six year Deer-Coyote study slated The State Agricultural and Wildlife Damage Prevention Board recently voted to establish a deer-coyote study to document any effect that coyotes may have on deer populations. The Research project will be conducted in the Blue Mountain-Elk Mountain-Elk Ridge and LaSal Mountain areas of southeastern Utah over a period of six years. The study is a joint venture primarily involving the Utah Department of Agriculture, Division of Wildlife Resources, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, U.S. Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management. The plan is to conduct coyote control for the protection of deer in the Blue Mountain-Elk Ridge area for the first two years of the study and document the response of these deer herds. Deer populations will then be carried out. There would be no control on either area for the second two-year two-year segment and then treat ments will be reversed. Coyote control will then be conducted in the LaSal Mountain area for the third two-year segment, and the effects compared to the Blue Mountain-Elk Ridge herds. Commissioner Joseph H. Francis, Utah Department of Agriculture, said, "Any livestock and poultry operators experiencing ex-periencing losses to predators in the study areas can expect help through the U. S. Fish and Wildlife Services as they have in the past." |