The Utah Divison of Wildlife Resources has proposed a reduction to total deer permits. In 2020, the DWR reduced deer permits from 89,900 to 79,675 in hopes to help the deer herd that had went through a tough winter followed by two years of extreme drought. However, due to some discouraging counts and many of the units having lower than average buck to doe ratio and fawn recruitment the DWR is suggesting another reduction. This time around the DWR is suggesting reducing the tags by another 4,900 tags. This would move the total deer tags down from 79,675 to 74,775.
The Proposed Deer Tag reductions
The large majority of these reductions would be for units in the southern portion of the state. The southern part of the state has been hit hardest by the two years of extreme drought. The deer counts in the area have shown biologists that the deer population has lost enough deer to warrant further reductions to hunting permits. Every unit in the southern region except for the Fillmore unit has proposed reductions. Below we will list the proposed reductions for each southern unit.
- Beaver: reduced down to 1,400 from 2,100 last year.
- Monroe: reduced down to 750 from 900 last year.
- Mount Dutton: reduced down to 225 from 550 last year.
- Panguitch Lake: reduced down to 1,200 from 2,200 last year.
- Pine Valley: reduced down to 4,100 from 4,500 last year.
- Plateau, Boulder: reduced down to 825 from 1,200 last year.
- Plateau, Fish Lake: reduced down to 800 from 950 last year.
- Plateau, Thousand Lakes: reduced down to 225 from 250 last year.
- Southwest Desert: reduced down to 650 from 800 last year.
- Zion: reduced down to 3,100 from 3,800 last year.
The southern region will see a total reduction of 3,975 permits which is about 80% of the total permits being reduced.
The other reductions will be spread out across units throughout the state. The DWR would like to hear from the public via the RAC boards in each region. You can contact the RAC boards by clicking here.
The DWR has also suggested several other proposals that we will be covering in the near future, so keep checking back for more news about hunting in Utah.
