Utahns rejoice as snowfall continues to stack up throughout the Beehive State. Skiers and snowboarders have fun the finest circumstances in 20 years. Those involved about historic drought within the area look ahead to some reprieve this spring and summer time. But because the snow water equal (or depth of water that may cowl the bottom if the snow had been melted) climbs 50 p.c above the 30-year common, circumstances within the northeastern a part of the state might spell catastrophe for a few of Utah’s grazing wildlife.
On Jan. 23, Utah’s Department of Wildlife Resources introduced that it had enacted an emergency feeding program for mule deer in Rich and Summit counties. This is the primary time the company has taken this precaution since 2017.
After conducting routine well being checks on massive recreation animals within the space earlier this month, biologists had found lower-than-average physique fats in a few of the mule deer. To assist these herds make it via the the winter, wildlife managers began feeding them particular pellets at 11 places in Rich County on Jan. 20. A separate feeding location will even be established in neighboring Summit County. Both counties are positioned on the Wyoming border and embody a few of Utah’s highest nation.
How Not to Feed Deer
At the identical time, DWR Northern Region wildlife supervisor Jim Christensen has referred to as on the general public to keep away from feeding deer themselves, particularly in the event that they plan on serving hay or alfalfa.
“Deer will eat hay, but if that is their only source of feed during the winter they can have a very difficult time digesting it,” Christensen says within the press launch. “We often find dead deer with stomachs filled with hay. We appreciate people wanting to help the deer, but we strongly discourage people from feeding hay or other things to deer. These are special circumstances that follow Division policies, involve trained professionals and utilize specialized feed. We still recommend that the public doesn’t feed wildlife, due to safety concerns, among other things.”
One hurdle the DWR should clear is the risk that persistent losing illness poses at these feed websites. Because the prion illness transfers simply when deer collect to eat at a particular meals supply, DWR received’t feed deer in areas the place they’ve recorded CWD.
This might depart wholesome deer stranded in these areas with none supplemental winter forage. But “the short-term benefits of feeding do not outweigh the negative long-term consequences of spreading chronic wasting disease in a highly congregated deer population,” DWR massive recreation coordinator Dax Mangus says.
Feast or Famine
If it looks as if Utah mule deer can’t catch a break, it’s as a result of they will’t. Drought circumstances have hampered water and meals availability currently, reducing physique fats shops and lowering fawn dimension and survival charges.
But in keeping with Mangus, issues are literally wanting up for the 2023 season. While high-elevation snowpack complicates winter survival for mule deer in Rich and Summit counties, deer in different components of the state have skilled a rejuvenating winters to this point.
“Even though we are feeding in a few areas this year, it’s not a super grim picture across the state. The area where we are feeding is usual suspect where we have higher-elevation winter ranges with colder temperatures,” Mangus tells Outdoor Life. “But the other 90 percent of the state, it’s kind of a custom-order winter. In other deer winter ranges, warm storms came up from southern California. We’d have warm temperatures and rain that would melt the snow. Then the storm would turn into snow at the end as it cooled off and we’d get six inches. We don’t have those really deep snow depths.”
Hunters Look Ahead
Mangus says these circumstances may result in a small enhance in searching permits, though he can’t promise something but. The goal Utah mule deer inhabitants is round 400,000 people, nevertheless it’s at present about 24 p.c decrease than that. As a outcome, general-season buck permits, limited-entry permits, and antlerless permits all went down for the 2022 season, similar to they did in 2021.
Meanwhile, Utah’s inhabitants is among the quickest rising within the nation. As folks flock there for outside recreation alternatives, extra hunters compete for fewer tags. Mangus says the common year-over-year development in hunters making use of for all permits is 5 to seven p.c.
“I wish we could grow the wildlife resource to keep up with that increase in demand, but there are a lot of areas where we are up against a carrying capacity or population objectives,” Mangus says. “We’ve seen some declines with the long-term drought but our wildlife populations are relatively stable. With human population growth, we see more and more demand for about the same number of permits, although it’ll go up or down a little bit depending on the years.”
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Utah Backcountry Hunters and Anglers chapter chair Perry Hall crunched some numbers and found out Utah has misplaced 20,000 general-season resident mule deer tags since 2012. He says that regardless of the inhabitants development, the demand for resident mule deer tags hasn’t modified significantly.
“I’m no statistician or mathematician. I’m an Average Joe deer hunter who put this together on my computer in 10 minutes today. Demand is overall reasonably flat, but we are seeing decreasing resident permits, and the deer population is decreasing,” he tells Outdoor Life. “This next year of application cycles will shed more light on if we’re actually seeing an increase in applications or if we’re just past the COVID bubble of hunting interest.”
Impacts of Heavy Snow
All this snow will seemingly work its magic to ship a lusher heat season this yr, which ought to then set mule deer up properly for subsequent winter, Mangus explains.
“It should help with soil moisture, spring and early summer green-up, it should really give us a boost on our summer ranges,” he says. “A lot of the research we’re doing looking at deer body condition is showing a strong correlation between healthy summer range and deer survival over winter. So when we see deer come into the winter in great shape with high body fat and high fawn weights, our deer survival seems to be much better, despite what kind of winter we have. If we have fat deer and heavy fawns, that helps us, and with this boost on our summer ranges, we’re hoping to see fat deer next fall.”