Utah guys

[catdogs]

Do any of you guys have and hard numbers as to the correlation between your deer numbers and lion numbers over the last say, 10 years. As I understand it, your deer numbers are still in the toilet even with high lion harvest. Lions are getting thrown under the bus in Montana and Idaho, because of dwindling ungulate herds, mostly of which is wolf related. Just want some numbers to throw back to our biologists. Thanks

[Bplott]

We do not have any hard fact data yet.... because they just barely started colaring our deer and tracking adult survival to get this data...our fawn numbers remain very very low which even the biologists admit winter kill or coyotes.... but over all even our biologist and mammals coordinator will admit even with the over harvest of our lions it has not brought the deer back..... The sportsmen for fish and wildlife(SFW) has convinced all the deer hunters in utah that the lions are the reason for no deer....BUT you cant convince people that urban housing, disease, automobiles, coyotes, and eagles definately hurt deer populations. They have finally started to look into the effects large herds of elk have effected the deer..... It has taken alot of hard work to try and convince the dwr/sfw that lions arent the only problem but they will not admit there wrong!

[southpaw40]

they might as well let the elk take over now the deer herd sucks i dont care much for deer anyway i rather see the elk then deer. i was reading a thing about utah deer i will try and find it again and post it it said that when we had out highest deer numbers ever we had at the same time period our highest lion numbers

[coldtrail75]

I have lived in Utah my whole life and the deer herds are way down. But anybody can look at the the UDWR web and look at the number of lions that have been harvested over the past fifteen years or so. And I think it was in 1996 or 1997 when the harvest objective started and something like 700 total lions killed that year. Well since then the lions have steadily decreased and so have the deer. Lion harvest has been around 250 to 300 lions for the last 6 years or so and the average age is around two years, so that tells me the lions have been over harvested. Now the "elk eating deer" theory may be true in some areas but it doesn't seem to be that way on the limited entry units near as much. So in my opinion the biggest downfall of the deer herds is over harvest. Predators will always be a factor with deer herds but I would bet if by some miracle the deer herds make a comeback, then the lions will too. Bobcat and coyote numbers go up and down when the rabbit populations go up and down ( my opinion ). SFW has made lions out to be the main killers of deer but what about technology in weapons? Rifles that will reach out to 1,000 yards, 300 yard muzzleloaders and archery equipment set up for 80 to 100 yard shots. Lions are NOT what have wiped out the deer in my opinion, so it is up to houndsmen too leave em in the tree if we want lions too hunt.

[tom]

i have hunted lion and deer as well as run cattle on the same mountain my whole life. both the lion and deer heards are as poor as i have ever seen them but their is no shortage of deer hunters,from september to november their is someone in the woods hunting deer every day. two years ago in one day of deer hunting i saw 68 doe and 0 bucks in a area where i had been seeing good bucks all summer. In my opinion that tells me we have an over hunting problem not a lion problem because lions don't eat only big bucks and let the doe live, they eat whatever is easiest to catch. but the utah DWR need to sale tags to make money and SFW need something to blame for the over hunting of deer, so they sale way to many tags and kill everything with horns that shows its face and the lions get the blame. they are killing off their own sport and are looking for somewhere to put the blame.

[slowandeasy]

when it comes to goverment run agencies whether fiish and game or any of the son of a guns. it's not about science, comon sense, or facts from kill reports. its a money grab plain and simple.

[Ringo]

Well said slowandeasy I blame our fwp hear more then the predators. These guys couldnt manage a fish tank.

[Shorty]

Not trying to stir the pot here, just have a simple question. How is the coyote population in Utah? I know that here at home we see a huge difference in fawn survival rates if we don't hammer the coyotes pretty hard. I've also seen mature deer killed time and time again by coyotes.

Also the coyotes will often eat the lions kill forcing them to kill again and the process repeats. I'm sure the bear would do the same as the coyotes. Like I said I'm not trying to stir the pot. I think this is a good discussion and would like to see it get into deeper thoughts.
Thanks,
Shorty Gorham

[slowandeasy]

shorty, this is also very true, i sometimes think coyotes are helping cut the umbilicalcord! but will never cut those money wasting government employee's any slack

[slowandeasy]

shorty, this is also very true, i sometimes think coyotes are helping cut the umbilicalcord! but will never cut those money wasting government employee's any slack

very well said ringo

[tom]

in my experience when the lions got wiped out the coyotes were the next dominent preditor in line and their population has exploded. as a consiquense the bobcats have really suffered also.

[walkin w/ some blue]

Shorty Are coyote populations are high the past couple years. Alot of utah's problem is winter range and deer being hit on the highways. We have all these people building on the foothills and benches taking away the lower areas for the deer to feed through the winter. Making the winter survival rates drop dramatically. Anyway you look at it in utah the deer are screwed. The F and G are more worried about the elk herd than the deer by far. There are alot of factors in the crappy deer population in utah but lions aren't the big one.

[cougar2]

Here in So. Ut. it's getting alot harder to find a lion to run and I have run across more deer kills from cyotes than lions, I have thought for years that the biggest reason for low deer numbers is from over harvest, MONEY, just my 2 cents.