Monster Muleys Podcast
All aspects of western hunting, with a focus on mule deer.
Monster Muleys Podcast
Episode 6: All things Mule Deer with Utah Big Game Coordinator Michael Wardle
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In this episode of the Monster Muleys Podcast, host Shane Rasmussen sits down with Utah Big Game Coordinator Michael Wardle for an in-depth look at Utah mule deer management, winter range surveys, and the science behind managing one of the West’s most iconic big game species.
Michael explains how the Utah Division of Wildlife Resources (UDWR) evaluates buck-to-doe ratios, why these numbers are important for mule deer populations, and how they influence hunting regulations and management decisions across Utah. Shane and Michael dive into the details of the winter range buck counts, including the exact methods wildlife biologists use to survey mule deer and estimate buck numbers throughout the state.
The conversation also explores mule deer age structure, including the percentage of 3½-year-old bucks remaining after hunting seasons, what those numbers mean for buck quality, and how hunters can better understand the factors that shape Utah’s mule deer herds.
The episode wraps up with a discussion about the potential introduction of bison on Utah CWMUs, examining the opportunities, challenges, and possible impacts on wildlife management.
For mule deer hunters, public land enthusiasts, and anyone interested in western hunting, this episode provides a rare behind-the-scenes look at the decisions shaping the future of Utah mule deer.
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Welcome to the Monster Melize podcast. Today we got Michael Wardle with us. He's the big game coordinator for Utah. Took over for Dax Mangus about three months ago. We talk a lot about yielder today. As always, we talk about buck quality on the winter range, fawn recruitment, how many three and a half-year-old deer are surviving and living on these general unit areas. Talk about cheat grass. Anyways, lots of great information here. Mike's super knowledgeable and he's dealing with it every day. Obviously, he's in the know. You're gonna love this episode. Also, don't forget, with we're doing the all-in giveaway, um the snapshot digiscoping setup for a spotting scope and binoculars. How you win, you gotta be a member of Monster Mulies. Um go on there on the Monster Mulley's podcast forum. There'll be a thread with that says it'll have this podcast listed with Mike Wardle. You just have to make a comment. Um, and when you make a comment, it numbers it, so I'll use a random number generator to pick the winner for the spotting scope and the binoculars all in digiscoping setup. I want to thank all in for that. Check them out, all in.com. I actually think it's all in dot co, but anyways, just Google all in O L L I N. O L L I N. And they got a ton of great gear on there. Also, don't forget, between now and July 31st, you heck you can use MM Podcast for 22% off. So make sure you do that. MM Podcast, all capital letters at checkout for 22% off. All right, let's get started with Mike Ordle. You guys are gonna love this one. All right, welcome to the Monster Mulies Podcast today. We got Mike Ordle on here. Mike is a big game coordinator, he's been in the job for three months. Um very excited to have him on here. Obviously, he was working with the DWR before that, but um wanted to thank you, Mike, for coming on and tell us just tell us a little bit about yourself.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, you bet thanks, Shane. Um my name's Mike. I I grew up in Fillmore, Utah, and that's where I live now. I've been the big game coordinator for just a few months. Prior to that, I was a district wildlife biologist. I covered the beaver, the Pavant, and the Oak Creek units. Um really enjoyed that job. I I got to be in the field 90% of the time and uh but was ready for some new challenges and just took the big game coordinator job. Now I'm trying to figure out that the state's bigger than just Fillmore.
SPEAKER_01So yeah, no, thanks for your job. Is uh you guys, you a lot of hard work, and it's probably in some ways a thankless job because you know we all want 200-inch bucks and we want everyone to get a tag, and so yeah, it's a hard job. So thank you so much for coming on and appreciate the job you do.
SPEAKER_00It's fun to work in a job where people are passionate. I mean, yeah, at times that passion can be clouded by misguided opinions and really strong emotions, but honestly, it's it's cool to work in a position on things that people actually care about, you know. Yeah, I feel really lucky to do that.
SPEAKER_01And I uh also want to thank you guys. I love how you're willing to think outside the box with the primitive weapon hunts and um the hams hunt. And yeah, I like how you guys are willing to try new things and see if they work. So thanks for that.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, our our director, one time we were in a meeting with some other agencies and he said he said, Look, if if mule deer are dying from a thousand cuts, he's like, We're gonna try a thousand different band-aids.
SPEAKER_01Nice, yeah.
SPEAKER_00That's kind of the approach the state's taken the last few years, is like, let's try new stuff. Um, and so I I I I like the idea of trying new things because mule deer are really important to me. And some people don't like these things that we're trying, but I think uh you don't you don't learn much if you don't try new things.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, some people might not like them, but just know that some people do. So yeah, I I like that you guys think outside the box, probably more than any other state that I've noticed, so thanks for that. But yeah, thanks.
SPEAKER_02I appreciate that.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, so on Monster Mules, I posted a thread, and um some of the members had some questions that they wanted me to ask you, and also um I had some questions I wanted to ask you. So I was gonna ask you about the primitive weapon hunts. Um I think there was up in cache, uh, I think there was Thousand Lakes, maybe the boulder. Um how was the feedback on that? And did you guys do you have any information on the if you did like uh if you did um check-ins with the types of bucks that were coming out, or the success rates might maybe the same, but were the bucks bigger, smaller? Just your thoughts on all the primitive weapon hunt.
SPEAKER_00I'll preface this with saying that my response is slightly biased towards the beaver west, because that's where I've been the biologist, you know, the last few years.
SPEAKER_01Is that primitive weapon down there too?
SPEAKER_00It is, yeah. Yeah, we split the beaver into the beaver east and the beaver west, and the west side was uh regulated weapons versus or restricted weapons versus the beaver east as normal. Um so looking at the data, we we've only got one year of data, right? So it's still pretty preliminary. We want to be able to do this for at least three or four years and and really analyze a bigger sample size of data points. Um, but this year, honestly, there wasn't a whole lot of difference in success rates. Um when you look at so the four units are the Beaver West, Cash, Boulder, and then the Thousand Lakes. Um, there wasn't a there wasn't like this huge stark difference in success rates. Um, having said that, there there are some differences, but they're not like all of a sudden muzzloter hunters are at a 20% success or something like that. They're pretty similar to before. Um again, I it's just one year of data, so we'll see what this year looks like. Um anecdotally, I heard so many stories of people um as I talked to folks on the Beaver West who had the story of man, opening morning or second day of the hunt, I had I had this really nice buck at 350 yards, and I couldn't kill him because you guys, you jerks, took my scope off my rifle. And yeah, I think that I think that that that really was the goal. Yeah. Um and and then later on, three days later, they shot a uh younger buck, and that older buck made it through. Um and again, we don't have a lot of data yet, but when we do our deer classification in November and December, our biologists are tracking the percentage of bucks that are are uh what they think are three years or older.
SPEAKER_01Oh, cool.
SPEAKER_00And so we're monitoring that on those units, and we'll see long term if we see that percentage increase or not. But anecdotally, it seems like, yeah, maybe we let a few more of those mature bucks slip through with the restricted weapons.
SPEAKER_01All right, and then on when they're I mean, uh when you're judging if a buck is three and a half years old, or what are you guys looking for on him? Yeah, it's hard.
SPEAKER_00Honestly, I I think that as hunters we we way big time overestimate our ability to tell the age of a deer on the hoof.
SPEAKER_01Um Yeah, I heard a podcast the other day. They're like, well, I can tell you if he's one or two, maybe, and then after that he's either three to ten.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, exactly. That's that's why that cutoff is at three years old. Um and you're looking at antler characteristics and body characteristics like most hunters do. I think that you can with some reliability estimate like that a buck is you know, obviously a yearling's pretty easy, two-year-olds fairly easy, two to three is kind of tough. Um, but above three years old, I think people are just taking shots in the dark. Um so that's why we've kind of cut it off at like, hey, let's let's put bucks into categories of yearling, two-year-olds, or mature.
SPEAKER_01Um so on those, uh I mean I'm guessing you're looking for this is super interesting to me because I've been trying to, you know, when you sometimes you see a buck alone, you're like, how big is his body? You know, what because it you know, all that plays a role in his antlers, proportion to his body. But are you looking for the protruding chest, sway back, that kind of thing?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, yeah, any of that stuff, you you really seem like you don't see that until more like four or five, even older, you know. Um yeah, you're looking at antlers, you're looking at mass, you know, is is it a four-point versus I mean, even even two-year-olds can be four points sometimes, right? But they're typically really small. Um yeah, we're just it it is somewhat subjective, but we're trying to make our best judgment call.
SPEAKER_01Awesome. And so do you have do you have any data on that yet?
SPEAKER_00Uh yeah, I do actually.
SPEAKER_01And this is just the primitive weapon units or all units?
SPEAKER_00This is all units. So I don't have it broke out yet into like the specific um primitive restricted weapons units.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, could you could would you be willing to just maybe tell us maybe a a northern unit, a central unit, a southern unit, maybe?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, you bet so like as far as percentage of um mature bucks in the classification or something?
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, so on on average, you're roughly 40 to 46, 7% of the bucks in the classification are going to be mature. That's that's like an average bioregion, and and that's pretty consistent across the state. So and those numbers do include some of our uh limited entry units. So like general season units. Um just looking at like the the Pavant here. Um forty-eight percent of the bucks were estimated to be mature. So three and a half or older, correct? Yeah, yeah. Beaver is forty-three percent. Uh cash this year was thirty-seven percent. So yeah, you're usually somewhere around that 40% mark. That's that's interesting.
SPEAKER_01That is way cool. I didn't know you guys had that data. So so if there's if you're on a unit with 18 bucks per hundred dolls, I mean it's saying about eight of those. Seven or eight of those are three and a half or older.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, and that's post-hunt, right? That's that's in November and December. Um so that's after the hunt has taken place. We're looking at what's left over following the hunt.
SPEAKER_01That is super interesting. I was dying to find out if you guys had data like that. That's that's that's encouraging. I mean, geez, that's you know, how many of those you is there any data? I've heard, you know, numerous times, once a buck gets I think it was four or four and a half, they most the majority is dying by natural causes or old age. Hunters aren't taking them. Any thoughts or data on that?
SPEAKER_00Uh we do have some data on that, looking at survival by age. I don't have that info right in front of me. Um, but typically, you know, typically once a once a deer reaches that like three years old, even two years old, their survival rates get better. So like is it through the life cycle of a deer at zero to six month mark, we lose a lot of deer. Uh, we call those neonates, and we've we've done research projects where we'll catch a doe in January, do an ultrasound, and if she's pregnant, we implant what's called a vaginal implant transmitter, and that pops out with her fawn in June. And we can go find the newborn fawn, put a collar on it, monitor its survival. Um, anyways, that's a lot of information, but that's how we get those survival estimates on zero to six months, and and those you know, we exp we expect to lose about half of our fawns from zero to six months, and then from six months to a year and a half old, you'll see us refer to that as fawn survival. Um, but that's really like that's your recruitment measure. So, how many of our fawns are coming into the adult population? And and again, that's done with GPS callers. Um, this year, to give you an idea, statewide our fawn survival was 70%. So 70% of our fawns that we collared made it to a year and a half old.
SPEAKER_01Was that a drastic change between northern and southern, or not really?
SPEAKER_00No, that's let's see, I can look, I'll give you some specific unit examples. Uh cash was 85% fawn survival. Um Monroe 47, that's one of the lower ones. Pine Valley was 81.
SPEAKER_01And that was for this this last December.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Okay.
SPEAKER_00Yep. So yeah, we measure that survival from December to December. So yeah, that's looking December 25 or sorry, December of 24 to December of 2025. Okay. Are those estimates I just gave you? Nice. So 70% honestly is really great on fawn survival. Um, we've had years where you know we're down on the 40%, which is really low sum.
SPEAKER_02Hmm, that is really cool.
SPEAKER_00It varies widely. Fawn survival can change a lot depending on drought versus like heavy winter. Like that year of the heavy winter in 22-23. You know, we had like if you look at the cash, none of our collard fonts survived that year. We had 0%. Um but yet the Monroe had 74% because that heavy winter was fantastic for southern Utah. That's what we needed. So yeah, it just varies a lot by unit and by area.
SPEAKER_01All right. And so on harvest numbers of bucks, uh, I mean, do you know if the vast majority on a hunt are they the yearlings and the two and a half-year-olds? Is that the vast majority, or or do you know what percent that would make up approximately of harvest?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, we used to we used to do a lot more check stations where we'd pull hunters off the side of the road and check their animals and and get estimates of ages in the harvest. And I want to say back in the day we were we were measuring about half of the harvest on like a rifle hunt was typically yearlings or two-year-olds. Okay. Um so yeah, a good majority of the bucks are gonna be yearlings.
SPEAKER_01Huh. Nice. Very interesting. Any any idea on how many of those bucks that are three and a half to four, like three and a half, four and a half, older. I mean, are quite a few of them dying of natural causes or old age, or I've heard the take on them is low from hunters once they get, I mean, yeah.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, there's a let's see if I can pull it up. I don't I don't know if you guys follow Randy Larson.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I just had him on two days ago. Oh, did you? Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, Randy's awesome. Randy he'd be able to remember all the numbers off the top of his head, but my brain unfortunately doesn't work that well. But you're good. He did a really he did a really cool post about a buck that his friend killed that was nine and a half years old, and he talked about the the odds of that buck making it just based on natural mortality year after year, and and it was like a one on one thousand deer. Yeah, you know, and and that excluded hunter harvest. And so I yeah, to in order to get a buck to eight or nine years old, it's not very common, especially on a general season unit, um, where we do have more hunting pressure. But but even just considering predation, cars, malnutrition, all the things that deer have against them, like it it's not common for a deer to make it to eight or nine years old.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, that's super interesting information. All right. Um, so another question here on the winter range, um, how are the counts done? And are 50% of the fawns considered in the buck-to-doe ratio?
SPEAKER_00Gotcha. Um, no, we don't consider like the newborn fawns, we don't break those out into the buck-to-eatio. Okay. Uh, we are counting yearling bucks in our buck-doe ratio. So it's going to be yearlings and above. Um, but yeah, what that looks like is starting, you know, second week of November when we're starting to see heavy red activity. Our district biologists are out there every morning and evening and they're they're classifying deer. So it's not, it's not like a it's not a census count, right? We're not like I've heard people ask if we're you know counting this many deer and this many acres and extrapolating that across the unit. Um, it's nothing like that. What we're really trying to get at is they they could they refer to it as herd demographics in biology. What essentially what that means is like if my deer herd is a pie chart, I'm wanting to know what percentage of that pie is does, uh, what percentage are fawns and what percentage are bucks, and and what the makeup of the herd is. And then we're using that information to plug into a model and couple that with our survival data, um, our harvest data, and to estimate what the total number of deer are for the unit. Is that yeah, trying to put it in it, frame it for you? Um the way the way it works is again, the biologists are just out trying to find as many deer as they can, and they're keeping track of how many does they see, how many bucks they see, and how many fawns they see. Okay. And and I'll I'll add for any of your listeners, like I think it's really valuable if if people don't trust our counts or you know, or I would love for them to come get in the truck with us. Like we really our biologists want more public engagement, and and I think it's really helpful for for the public and for our biologists to get together in a truck and drive around and look at the resource and uh and help us because sometimes sometimes deer hunters they know areas and little pockets of deer where maybe the biologist isn't counting. Yeah. Maybe you know the deer hunter's saying, there's no way there's 20 bucks per 100 dose, because in this canyon I only counted five bucks for every hundred dose. And the biologist is saying, well, for the unit, the buckt door ratio is 20 per 100, right? We sometimes we look at things at different scales. So it's really good if any of your listeners want to contact their local biologist, like please know that's an open door. Please come contact us and go out with us.
SPEAKER_01Awesome. Um, yeah, I would like to do that. They just just get a hold of the biologist and just ask them if they can come ride with them pretty much then, huh?
SPEAKER_00Yeah. Yeah, they can either you know figure out a way to contact me and I can put them in touch with their district biologist, or they can call the regional office and say, hey, I'm really passionate about the cash, or I'm really passionate about the pine valley. Can you get me a phone number for the for the wildlife biologist on that unit?
SPEAKER_01Okay. We want to be we want to be open to hunters. Awesome. On these buck to dough ratios, is that both on public and private combined? Yeah. We're trying to go ahead. No, go ahead.
SPEAKER_00We're trying to get a mix for the whole unit, right? We're trying to sample as many deer as we can across the entire unit. Um, northern Utah, that gets hard because you know, a lot of time a lot of our northern units, the buckdo ratio is overobjective because of the private land issues. And uh but yeah, our biologists are still trying to get and and sometimes they're splitting out. If a unit I was like East Canyon or Morning South Rich, with a lot of private, they're typically trying to split out. Okay, in these areas, my buckdo ratio was this, and that's mostly private land. Whereas the public ground, maybe my buckdo ratio looks more like this. Um that doesn't that doesn't get shown in the reported number, but I know our district bios are looking at that too.
SPEAKER_01Could that play a role in how many tags are permitted?
SPEAKER_00Uh yeah. I think that you know, this is a lesson we learned, especially in northern Utah, is that you can't do more permits on a unit that's 90% private land and expect to get the harvest out of it and reach your buck-o ratio objective. Um yeah, it's it's just not gonna work. You're just gonna make people angry and lower success rates of hunters. Yeah. So that's that's something that our, especially in the northern region, our district bios are considering is you know, most of these hunters are going to be on public land, and how do I issue these permits in a way that's not just overcrowding those pieces of public?
SPEAKER_01Interesting. That's good to hear. Um On the winter range, would you say, I mean, for buck quality, I'm sure it depends on unit. Um, any guesses, and this would probably I'm sure this would maybe be anecdotal evidence, but any guesses on percent of bucks that are hitting 170 or bigger. Any idea on that?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, that's hard. Um like you said, it's gonna vary big time by unit. Um we we don't have that data. I mean, I it's again, I think that's another area where as hunters we're we think we're really good at estimating score in the field, and some some people are.
SPEAKER_01Uh yeah, I've talked about that before. Once you get them on the ground sometimes, it's like uh wasn't as close as I thought. But yeah, keep going.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, so it's gonna it's gonna vary a lot by unit. And I also think we need we need to understand as hunters that like 170 and above it is an above-average mule deer. Uh there's some really cool research out of BYU where they had a sample size of bucks where they knew the age of the animal and they knew the boon and crockett score. And and based on that um study, they were showing the average deer is is like a 163 or something like that, like mid-160s buck. That's your average 510 white guy like me, right? And everything and everything above that is is gonna be above average. And and so it's I I talk to hunters all the time who are they'll see a buck that's like 170, and they're like, oh, that deer just needs one more year, you know. If he has one or two more years, he's gonna be a giant, and and the data shows that's not always the case. Um, there are bucks that might be the case, but there's also plenty that 170 might be as big as they're ever gonna be, 160 might be as big as they're ever gonna be. And trying to get that deer to live till eight years old isn't gonna change that because he doesn't have the nutrition available available to him to grow giant antlers, uh, the genetic makeup, all those other roles that play a factor in how big his antlers are gonna be.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I um one of my bucks I shot years ago, he was low 150s and he was eight and a half.
SPEAKER_02Well, so yeah.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I I started when I was the biologist on the Oak Creek, I started emailing all the hunters and asking them for pictures of their deer. And uh a lot of guys were really good at sending me pictures. And and I only emailed those that I had that the hunters that had submitted a tooth, so I knew the age of their animal from the lab. And it was fascinating to look at those pictures and see a deer that, you know, to me looked like maybe maybe a three or four-year-old buck, and to find out, yeah, he was eight or nine. Or same thing, or same vice versa. There was a deer, I remember on the Oak Creek, that he was a small three-point that a guy had shot, and looking at him on the ground, any day of the week, you'd have said he was like a two or three-year-old buck. Um and he was nine years old. He was the oldest buck killed that year. So I yeah, I think we like I say we just overestimate our ability to tell age on the hoof.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, and he it was a little three-point, huh?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, he it wasn't big by any means. He you know, he had he was pretty had good mass, but you'd you'd still thought he was a three-year-old when you saw him on the field.
SPEAKER_01That's crazy. All right. Um okay, here's a question. Um I had someone asking about is there any thoughts on maybe getting bison, seeing if private land home private landowners like on these CWM? Alright, Mike, I got you. Alright, so we had to switch SD cards. So, anyways, Mike, we were talking about private landowners allowing bison, like Deserts, CWMUs, and you're just saying that's a tricky subject, right? They eat the same thing as cattle, they damage fences. Anything else on that?
SPEAKER_00Just, you know, if there are large private landowners that are interested, let's let's chat. But there are a lot of issues in putting bison back on the landscape.
SPEAKER_01All right. And then we also talked a little bit about wild horses and having a wild horse hunt. That's that's very far exaggerated, but anyways, if it was up to Utah, maybe we would, but they're a federal animal. Anything else on that, Mike?
SPEAKER_00No, no, that basically covers it.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. All right. Um okay, and then we start talking about cheatgrass. So what is the DWR doing for cheatgrass and um how big of a concern is it?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, um, so a lot of the research and data that we've collected shows that nutrition is the biggest driver for deer populations, right? Shouldn't shouldn't be a surprise to anybody. Like healthy deer equals healthy deer populations, and they need good food to be healthy. Um, so cheatgrass affects that big time on the winter range, especially. Um, you'll see areas where the cheat grass is choking out um forbs and shrubs that meal deer need, especially during the winter time. And and that's a concern for us. And there are some treatments that we've done that have worked really well, like we we've tried plateau and spike, um, and even what's called rejuvre, which is a kind of a newer herbicide that's come out. We've done a lot of that um at smaller scales and and had success in controlling cheatgrass. Um, but cheat grass, it's it's a tough, tough puzzle to crack. Um cheatgrass cheats, right? That's why they call it that. It it can actually seed twice in a year sometimes, and it's a really prolific seed-producing grass. And so it just crowds out anything else, and and it we've had a hard time finding plants that will compete well with cheap grass. So if somebody's got the silver bullet out there, um they should they should run with it because they could make a lot of money if they can figure out how to control cheap grass across the west.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I've heard I've heard there's a guy in Monster Mills who'll talk about the rejuvera. So that seemed to work pretty good, huh?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, there it's showing promising results. Um, the struggle with rejuvra is what what it does is it kills, it basically allows the seed to not grow for the next few years. So it kind of limits your seedbed growth, um, which is great for a scenario where you have sagebrush and cheap grass and other plants competing together, and this and the sagebrush and the plants you want are already there. Um but if you are like say doing a chaining and trying to get shrubs to grow or or these other plants to grow, rejuvenate doesn't make a lot of sense because it also inhibits those plants from growing. Um so it affects if it affects annual production of plants, but but it doesn't affect like root the root system of the plant. That makes sense. I'm not a habitat expert by any means, but that's kind of the gist of it. And so there are times where it makes sense, uh, there are other times when it doesn't, but it does show promise for grass control.
SPEAKER_01And so in I guess you were saying earlier it's not approved on Forest Service or BLM land. What does that process look look like? And is it long, drawn out, difficult?
SPEAKER_00I'm not even sure, honestly, um what they have to go through to do it. I'm I imagine it has something to do with NEPA and environmental analysis. But yeah, I'm not entirely sure. And and it may be, but last I had heard is that was one of our one of the hurdles for rejuvena. Um and and again, like I said, there are things we've done with cheatgrass that have worked really well at smaller scales. The struggle with cheatgrass is that it is such a large-scale problem, and we don't have a great answer for controlling it at large scales, right?
SPEAKER_01Okay. All right. Um, all right. Um, another question that we had that came up on Monster Mulies. Um, I know people talk about um just being more selective in bucks that you take, right? Um in some areas, you know, I'm thinking like Region G, Wyoming, probably not a lot of two points are gonna get taken. I don't I mean, I'm I guess there I'm sure there is, but people are like a little more selective on that unit. And so the question we had and on Monster Wheelways was if people were more selective in the bucks they're taking, passing younger bucks, letting them get older, which is a difficult thing to track. And you know, some people they just want any buck, which is great. But if that if people were being more selective, less bucks were taken, would the permits just increase anyways to to hire the harvest?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I mean, if it's a general season unit, we're gonna issue permits um in or in order to try and reach the buckdo ratio objective. So if that objective is still 15 to 17 or 18 to 20 and the buckto ratio goes up, you know, because hunters are are choosing to pass on harvesting bucks, and yeah, we would essentially increase permits the next year in order to move it towards that objective. And having said that, like really what people uh when I hear that conversation, what I think people are saying is they just want fewer bucks harvested each year, especially mature bucks, right? Which looks more like our limited entry units, like the Ponsagant or the Bookcliffs, Vernon, Oak Creek, any of those units. Really, on those units, we've stepped in and said, okay, we're going to limit buck harvest by limiting the number of permits that are available for hunters. And and it essentially has the same same outcome as what these guys are talking about. Um, but the difference there is that the objective for the buck door ratio is higher, so we don't have this huge increase in permits in order to or an increase in permits in order to reach that objective. Um, so yeah, I I think there's it's just trade-offs really with mule deer management. Uh what people are talking about is a difference, you know, there I always think of like the spectrum of opportunity versus quality. Um, and it doesn't mean that one way is right and one way is wrong. I think that everybody kind of lands somewhere on that spectrum on what their ideal hunting experience looks like. And and that's okay. That's we we've tried to kind of give a range of on that spectrum of of units throughout the state. You know, you can wait 30 years and try to hunt the Ponsagant, or you can go get a tag every year and go hunt the box elder and um trying to provide those different kinds of opportunities for folks to choose from. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. Um the my thought on that is um not that anyone cares, but my thought on that is I'd rather be hunting with a bunch of people that are gonna go take a two-point opening morning and then leave. And then, you know, and then it's like, okay, I got the unit, you know, to myself more, and there's the big bucks haven't been taken yet. You know, it's kind of I I I mean, you you hate to see a guy hunting your same unit that's he's got his vinyls on a tripod, he's backpacked in, he's not leaving until he kills, you know, he's holding out for one 70-ish. It's like, I'd rather have someone in there that's gonna shoot a two-point and leave.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, yep. That's I always tell people, I'm like, look, you can hate the side-by-side hunters, or you can realize that they are the people you want on your unit because they're gonna drive those roads all day and they might shoot a small buck, and then they're gonna go home, and they're not going to be backpacked into the canyon with you competing with you for a bigger buck. So as hunters, we like to we like to pick and choose who who the cool hunter is and who the other one who's not. And reality is we're all we're all hunters, and we we have different values for the hunt, and that's okay. Yeah, you shouldn't race up, not hate it, you know.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, no, for sure. Yeah, there's yeah, there's a lot of people that love hunting, they love cruising the roads, maybe sleeping in a little, you know, having a good meal. Yeah, that's fine. Those are the kind of hunters I want in my unit. So yeah, yeah, that's great. They're welcome. Yeah. Um, any relocation of doughs that you guys do if they're in urban areas or say they're a problem with the farmer's crops, do you guys relocate any of them? Or because I know it it sounds like there's a few dough tags given out around the state, and it sounds like it's if there is, it's probably for that situation. Am I wrong on that or is that correct?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, so I'll touch, I'll touch on like I'll touch on relocation first, and I'll talk about the depredation stuff. Um we used to relocate deer, so we used to have what we call our urban deer program, where we caught deer along the Wasatch Front out of cities and neighborhoods and moved them to different places across the state. Um, we we quit doing that, I think, in 2019-ish. And uh really the main reason was we were concerned about transmitting disease across the state. Um we also did a lot of research looking at survival of translocated deer. We were showing that on average about half of those deer are going to die within the first year. So and and it's expensive, obviously, to move deer, um, which is okay. We've learned that for a project like that, somebody there's always money somewhere that we could do it. Um, but it was a lot of a lot of time and effort and money for uh 50% survival of those deer in the first year. And and the risk of transmitting disease just wasn't worth what we were getting out of it. Um, we were really worried about transmitting chronic wasting disease um to different units across the state and and others like exotic lice and other other diseases and parasites. So that's kind of why we stopped doing it and why we haven't done it. And and even honestly, at that time, we were we were really looked down upon by other states. Other states were looking at us like we were psychos for moving deer because they don't they don't do it in a lot of other places because of those, you know, disease transmission risks. So we've yeah, we've gone away from that. I don't see that returning anytime soon. It's just the the benefit, it's tough to it's tough to justify that potential cost of moving a serious disease like chronic wasting disease. Um because there's there's no live test for CWD. So we can't like catch a deer and do take a sample without killing it. So you know there's just no way to test them and keep them alive, and at least no reliable tests that we were comfortable using. Um if that changes, then maybe the conversation changes, but for now we're not moving deer. Um so that's relocation stuff. Uh depredation, we do issue do tax to farmers in areas where you know meal deer are resident and they're causing damage to crops. And um we try to you know, we try to limit those. We really don't want to just go and slaughter a bunch of deer, especially if they're available on to public hunters on public land. Um, we have other options that we can approach landowners with. We can try to do a CWU program, a landowner association on our limited entry units. We can pay them for the damage to the crops rather than killing the deer. And we do all those things throughout the state. Um, but there are scenarios where, you know, like a mule deer spends 90 to 95 percent of its life on private land causing damage to agriculture. Those deer honestly are not are not really valuable to the entire general public, to hunters. Um, I mean, they're still valuable, right? They're they're an animal and we we want to see them, but those those deer are not available to hunters, they're typically not subject to natural limiting factors like like your regular migrating deer. They don't have as many cougars, they don't have as many coyotes. Um, they're not as impacted by drought and heavy winter because they're standing in an alfalfa field. Um, and so yeah, we we have control measures in place to help farmers. And and and to be fair to farmers, like it can cause a lot of damage, and that's that's their pocketbook um that's affected. So I also feel for them. Um, but yeah, we try to limit that as much as we can.
SPEAKER_01Interesting. Yeah, those are some good points that maybe not everybody looks at all the angles. Um yeah, that's kind of how it was. I'm sure once you or how it is in a lot of areas in life, I'm sure once you get once you got into this job, it's like, ah, there's a bunch of different angles here I didn't used to think about.
SPEAKER_00For sure. Yeah, there's always a million different ways to look at these subjects. And like I said earlier, not one of them is usually right or wrong. Um, they're usually varying degrees of right and wrong depending on the value system you have.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, yeah. So yeah, but I gotta ask you this question. I know I know in Wyoming there's been some grizzlies not far from the Utah border, like 15, 20 miles. Is there any thoughts or yeah, any any thoughts or even evidence that suggests a grizzly might have wandered into Utah at all? Do you know about that?
SPEAKER_00Uh not that I've heard from from our folk our regional folks. I don't think we've confirmed any grizzlies coming into the state that I know of. Um, but I may have been left out of the loop on that since I'm mostly deer elk and pronghorn. Yeah. Uh but yeah, I haven't I haven't heard any confirmation of a grizzly coming into the state.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I'm doubt there. I doubt they're well, I don't know, man. They've been closed. But yeah, I was just curious if you knew anything about that. Um, yeah, anything else you want to talk to us about? Any pro oh, I was gonna ask you about projects that are going on um that are helping save deer. Anything um maybe in the north, northern part of the state, central, southern, maybe you got some things you want to share that are going on to help deer?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, for sure. Um I I think that honestly, my probably my biggest message to folks that are willing to sit and listen to my voice on a podcast is um please get involved. Like meet your local district biologist. If you don't know who they are, find out who they are, get in their truck, and come out on and work with us. I think that having passionate deer hunters on our team is is really valuable and it's necessary for us to be successful. Um, we're doing deer captures throughout the state this winter again. Those are fantastic opportunities to to spend some FaceTime with the biologist and see what we do. We're we're gonna be we use helicopters and we netgun animals, sling them back to a staging area. I mean, we're taking ultrasounds, blood samples, measurements, um, a lot of information on these deer. We're putting a GPS collar on. Uh that can that then helps us monitor their survival. Not only do we get to monitor their survival, if that when that when that animal dies, our biologist hikes to the location and determines what killed it. Uh, we're learning a lot about what's actually killing meal deer through these projects. Um and so these are these are huge, huge efforts um that are put on by a lot of people, but they're really a valuable asset for hunters to get out and see what we're actually doing. So get out on the ground with us and do captures, um, deer classification. If you're interested in how that's done, get in the truck with your local biologist and go see and and help them, help them find big groups of deer and uh show them, show them your little nooks and crannies that you don't like to talk about with anybody else. Show them where where you can see where they can find a lot of deer to you know help make sure they're getting good sample sizes on their units. Um habitat projects. We've got a lot of different stuff going on throughout the state, from you know, bitter brush plantings that people can get involved in. Uh, we've we've also been doing these mule deer, I don't know what we've decided to call them, mule deer working groups or um these local deer committees where we put together groups of hunters and uh we've been meeting every few months to talk about potential habitat projects and potential guzzler projects and and trying to get more information from the folks that are are hunting these units year after year and tap into their knowledge base on locations where we could improve things for meal deer. Um those are great avenues also to to try and have some influence and help us.
SPEAKER_01Nice. On uh excuse me, on underpasses or overpasses, um, are we doing any of those and if they proved to be beneficial?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, yeah, for sure they have. Um they're more beneficial if we can put in the under or the underpass or overpass before something is fenced off and migration is stopped. Um, you know, like Highway 89 out east of Canab is a great example where crossing structures have been really valuable. We used to get a ton of deer hit between like Canab and Page. And uh when they fenced that, they put in a bunch of crossing structures, and we've we're moving a lot of deer every year across that highway safely. Uh they're expanding that project actually. This I think they started this year. Um, so yeah, those are helpful. And it's more difficult though when the migration's been cut off for generations. It's harder to restore that. So, like a an example I would think of is you know, if a hunter approached me and said, hey, let's let's throw up a crossing structure by parawan over I-15, um, you know, an area that's been high fenced for a long time and has stopped migration for generations. Um, we could try it, but it's a lot of money and I mean to the tune of millions of dollars to do these, and and I don't know that we're gonna see a huge benefit right off the bat. They're behaving. So maybe long term, maybe long term deer find it and use it. Um, but migration and movement is really something that's taught generation to generation. They're they're learned from their mother, and so you know, if grandma stopped at the I-15 fence, and this year's phone's probably gonna stop at the I-15 fence too. Interesting. Good point.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. Well, Mike, I want to thank you for coming on, and we'd love to have you back on if that's okay um in the future. Um, anything else? Um, where can we follow you? Do you give updates on Instagram or anything like that, or not really?
SPEAKER_00No, I kind of hate social media from.
SPEAKER_01All right. All right. Well, I want to thank you, and it was super nice talking to you. I'd love to meet with you again.
SPEAKER_00Okay, yeah, thanks, Jenny. I appreciate it.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, we'll see you.