<(Adam) "Welcome Back to KSL Outdoors. Big Changes are in store for this years deer hunt. The application period starts on Wednesday and hunters have a lot to think about before they apply. This year, Instead of hunting one of five general regions, deer hunters are now going to have to pick one of thirty units in the state.">
<(Amy Canning, DWR, Communications Specialist) "Where to hunt is really one of the biggest questions and tell me more about how this happened, how is it that we are at 30 units.">
In 2010, in a controversial decision. The Utah wildlife board mandated the DWR to increase the buck to doe ratio in Utah from 15 bucks per 100 does, to 18 bucks per 100 does. To do this, the board voted to decrease the amount of deer tags available for this years hunt and changed from the 5 region areas to 30 units. With the application period just days away, now is the time to get on the DWR web site and figure out where you want to apply.
<(Amy Canning) "Once you click on that main link on our front page. You'll see that we've got a list of maps, you can get to the 2012 unit map.">
<(Amy Canning) "This map indicates where the units are. The unit numbers are a combination of the subunits that make up that unit. It may look a little strange, but unit 12/16B/16/C is really just one unit..">
<(Amy Canning) "People want to know what unit to apply for. They want to know drawing odds for particular units and that's tricky right now because this is the first time we've ever had 30 general season units. In order to give people drawing odds, we need to know how many people are going to apply. Where we don't have historic data we can't give people drawing odds for 2012.">
Even though the application period finishes up in March, the wildlife board and DWR biologists won’t decided until April how many tags will be issued for each unit. One quick tip to decide what unit to apply for now, is to take a look at the amount of bucks per 100 does the DWR says are on each unit.
<(Mark Hadley) The biggest thing that biologist will be looking at, what we encourage hunters to look at when they come to the web page are the number of bucks per 100 does on the various units. The higher the number of bucks per 100 does, the greater the chance there will be more permits offered for that unit.">
<(Amy Canning) "It's just going to take a little bit of adjusting and kind of looking at what the options are before people apply and we've tried to make that as easy as possible.">
<(ADAM TAG) Mule Deer populations are declining across the west. Many Hunters argue the changes implemented by the Wildlife Board do nothing to increase the overall population of deer in the state only the amount of bucks hunters will see if they draw a tag this year. It's been a huge topic and hunters are rallying together to push the DWR and the Wildlife Board to come up with a plan to increase our deer herds. The application period begins Wednesday and ends March 1st.
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