Utah Wildlife Board approves updated deer management plan, new hunt strategies research and other items

Salt Lake City — The Utah Wildlife Board approved an updated statewide mule deer management plan and some new hunt strategies for a research study, as well as a few other items during Thursday's public meeting.

New Utah Mule Deer Statewide Management Plan

Utah's current statewide deer management plan was approved in 2019 and will expire at the end of December. In updating the Utah Mule Deer Statewide Management Plan, the Utah Division of Wildlife Resources formed a committee of a diverse group of stakeholders to provide input on the new plan. The Utah Wildlife Board approved the new management plan, which is in effect from now until December 2030 (for a total of six years, encompassing two, three-year cycles for setting hunting season structures and season dates).

"This updated management plan incorporates all the latest scientific studies and research data about mule deer," DWR Big Game Coordinator Dax Mangus said. "We are taking all of the recent research and incorporating that into management efforts to increase deer populations in Utah. Part of that has involved identifying the limiting factors for deer population growth through our GPS collar data and working to address those factors. That includes increasing targeted predator removal, increasing the amount of habitat and associated restoration projects to benefit mule deer, and combating disease through targeted hunting strategies, among other things. Our main priorities with this latest management plan are to help increase our deer populations while also providing hunting opportunities."

The plan features a few updated items, including:

• Information about the biology and management history of mule deer in Utah.
• Updated population management goals, objectives and strategies.
• Expanded sustainable harvest goals. One of the new strategies would adjust the general-season deer hunting unit objectives — by modifying some of the units' buck-to-doe ratios to 15-17 — in order to optimize herd productivity, reduce disease risks and increase hunter participation.
• An updated plan for managing chronic wasting disease in Utah's deer populations, including expanding disease testing, encouraging disposal of deer carcasses in approved landfills and having the ability to recommend targeted hunts in chronic wasting disease hotspot areas.

Part of the approved management plan also includes the ability to automatically adjust permit numbers annually up to 20% to respond to data from GPS tracking collars, animal health, current habitat conditions and weather conditions.

New hunt strategies research

Along with the new management plan, the Utah Wildlife Board also implemented some new hunting strategies on four deer hunting units as part of a research study. The purpose of the study will be to determine if hunting restrictions based on weapon technology can improve mule deer population performance, hunting opportunity and/or hunter satisfaction. Some components of this research study were proposed last year, but were primarily focused on hunting units in southern Utah. The approved study expands it to additional parts of the state and has additional modifications.

The new approved hunt strategies for the study include:

• Restricted muzzleloader and restricted rifle hunts on the Beaver, West; Boulder/Kaiparowits and Cache hunting units. Archery would not be restricted, and the restrictions would not apply to limited-entry late muzzleloader hunts. The weapons restrictions will be based on recently passed definitions of restricted weapons.
• Restricted archery, restricted muzzleloader and restricted rifle hunts on the Thousand Lakes hunting unit. The weapons restrictions for this hunt will also be based on recently passed definitions of restricted weapons.

The DWR had also proposed implementing antler restrictions of four points or more (on at least one side) for buck deer on the Pine Valley hunting unit as part of the study, but the board voted to not approve the proposal.

The research study will also allow the DWR to recommend permit numbers on each of the hunt units annually to maintain the buck-to-doe ratios for each unit within the established objectives. The study will be implemented for four hunting seasons (from 2025-28) in order to provide sufficient data to assess the effects on the deer populations and the social attitudes toward the hunt strategies.

"Utah has the largest active mule deer research and monitoring program in the Western U.S. and is constantly seeking to learn and improve mule deer management," DWR Big Game Projects Coordinator Kent Hersey said. "Sometimes, the public asks the DWR to test new strategies as ways to increase hunting opportunity, while also managing for more mature bucks. With new research capabilities in place, like mandatory harvest reporting and GPS collars on big game animals throughout the state — along with different hunt structures and an intense and growing demand and interest in mule deer hunting in Utah — we will be implementing these strategies on a few units in Utah on a trial basis. We want to research their impacts on mule deer populations and understand the social implications of these strategies."

Deer, elk and pronghorn hunting season dates and new hunts

The board also voted to approve the dates for the 2025-27 hunting seasons for deer, elk and pronghorn. A few new hunts were also approved, including:

• A new "extended archery only" general-season deer permit application option that will allow successful applicants to hunt only the extended archery hunt areas during the extended season dates (existing extended archery deer hunting opportunities will remain unchanged).
• New general-season deer hunts on five hunting units that have updated boundary changes, as part of the updates to the statewide management plan.
• An early any-legal-weapon buck deer season on the Box Elder general-season hunting unit to help address concerns with crowding.
• A new late-season handgun-archery-muzzleloader-shotgun-straight walled rifle-only buck deer hunt in the San Juan, Mancos Mesa area.
• A new late-season any-legal-weapon buck deer hunt in the Henry Mtns, Little Rockies area.
• Two targeted any-legal-weapon buck deer hunts in mid-November in the La Sal, Castle Valley area and the La Sal, Moab Valley area to address chronic wasting disease. Hunters will be required to submit a chronic wasting disease sample when harvesting a deer in these hunts.
• New pronghorn muzzleloader hunting seasons on the Box Elder, West and Box Elder, Snowville hunting units to address crowding concerns.
• A new general-season bull elk hunt on private lands within the Uinta Basin, in order to address depredation issues on agricultural properties.
• Two new limited-entry elk hunts for nine days in late December on two general-season elk units in northern Utah.

Updates to bison, bighorn sheep, moose and mountain goat hunts

The Utah Wildlife Board also approved the dates for the 2025-2027 hunting seasons for bison, bighorn sheep, moose and mountain goat, as well as a few new and discontinued hunts for some of these species, including:

• Splitting the Kaiparowits, Escalante desert bighorn sheep hunting unit into two new desert bighorn sheep units, in order to better distribute hunters in the area.
• A new bull moose hunt in Box Elder.
• Discontinuing a bison hunt in the Book Cliffs, Little Creek/South unit in order to reduce hunting pressure in that unit.
• A new Rocky Mountain bighorn sheep hunt on Antelope Island. The board provided direction on establishing a new memorandum of understanding with Utah State Parks regarding season dates and funding distribution of Antelope Island permits. The board also approved the conservation permit for bighorn sheep on Antelope Island for the next three-year cycle of conservation permits.

The board also voted to have the DWR look into aligning the season dates for the conservation permits in 2026 with the public hunting dates and gave the DWR authority to change nonresident hunt status as necessary during the three-year cycle.

Other items

During Thursday's meeting, the board also approved a few rule updates, including:

• Defining three-point and four-point antler point restrictions in rule.
• Clarifying that a person may not use protected GPS location data or other radio collar data to locate, track, harvest or attempt to harvest or retrieve any big game animals, upland game, waterfowl, cougar, bear, turkey or furbearer species or their parts.
• Allowing the DWR to convert any remaining general-season buck deer permits from the unutilized youth allocation to any-legal-weapon regular season youth permits after all the youth permit applications have been received and evaluated. (Currently, there is a 20% allocation to youth for general-season buck deer permits, but not all of the percentage is used, due to not enough youth archery, early any-legal-weapon, and muzzleloader applications on certain hunting units.) This change will allow those permits to be used by other willing youth hunters.
• Only allowing hunters to apply for the Dedicated Hunter COR/point or apply for a general-season buck deer permit/point, but not for both types of permits. (This would reduce applications and decrease the number of points being accrued, which would improve overall drawing odds).
• Approving 424 private permits and 93 public permits to be allocated for 128 Cooperative Wildlife Management Units in Utah, and also approving the renewal of a CWMU in southeastern Utah.
• Updating the rule definition of a "resident" (for the purposes of applying for Utah resident hunting permits) in order to align the rule with current state statute.

You can watch the full meeting on the Utah Department of Natural Resources YouTube channel.