SALT LAKE CITY — Utah wildlife officials are adding nearly 6,500 new permits to the state’s largest hunt this year as the deer population, which declined significantly several years ago, has steadily increased.
The Utah Department of Wildlife Resources on Wednesday released proposed big game hunting permit allocations for 2026, including a request for a general season deer permit of 86,625 deer. This is an 8% increase compared to last year. It also seeks limited entry permits for 1,708 deer and permits for 345 antlerless deer, a slight increase starting in 2025.
“Mule deer populations fluctuate. They increase and decrease. Our hunting permits should reflect that,” Mike Wardle, the agency’s hunting program coordinator, said in a video explaining the proposal.
After dropping below 300,000 a few years ago, Utah’s deer population has increased to about 325,000 in the state’s 2025 deer count in December, Wardle said, largely as a result of improved weather conditions.
Although the state’s population goal is just over 400,000 deer, hunting bucks has little impact on the deer population compared to doe and fawn survival rates and the birth of new fawns, he said.
Harsh winters and extreme summer droughts are bad, and this is the combination that occurred between 2020 and 2023. Mild winters and good summer monsoonal humidity are good and have generally been the case ever since. These affect the quantity and quality of habitat that is essential to deer survival.
Fawn survival has improved over the past two years, but adult survival has also remained stable. Utah wildlife biologists also look at predator balance, such as the abundance of predators such as cougars and coyotes, deer body condition, buck proportions, and other data sets when considering the number of hunting permits.
“The deer are actually the driving force behind the mule deer herd. It’s not the money,” he says. “In fact, they are responsible for the rise and fall of the population. … In recent years, the population has been increasing quite steadily.”
Most of the increase will be within the division’s northern and northeastern areas, with Cache, Ogden and Vernal/Bonanza hunting units all set to receive more than 15% in permits, as well as Beaver/East in the southern region.
Some units, like Oquirrh/Tintic, which can lose 200 permits depending on conditions, are slightly reduced. The Monroe unit’s permit count remains unchanged at 1,100, but Wardle said 108 hunters will already be assigned to hunters who had their permits revoked after last year’s Monroe Gorge Fire that ravaged much of the region.
Other Big Game Permit Recommendations
Meanwhile, general-season bull elk hunting remains untouched, with 15,000 adult permits granted early in the season and unlimited permits later in the season when they are sold over the counter. Unrestricted permits are also granted to youth and archery hunters.
Youth draw-only bull permits will also remain at 750, while branchless elk permits will increase slightly to 21,650 and restricted-admission bull elk permits will decrease slightly to 3,497.
There will also be some changes to other big game hunting.
- Buck Pronghorn: 1,827 (plus 88)
- Dough Pronghorn: 475 (decreased by 30)
- Bull elk: 113 (7 more)
- Bison: 135 (2 more)
- Desert bighorn sheep (reduced by 3)
- Rocky Mountain bighorn sheep: 51 (down 1)
- Mountain goats: 112 (9 more)
Antlerless elk (15) and Rocky Mountain bighorn sheep (5) remain the same as in 2025.
The Utah Wildlife Commission is scheduled to vote on the proposal later this month, following several regional advisory committee meetings held across the state from April 14 to April 23.
Board members also plan to collect public comments online through the end of April 22 before voting on the bill at the board’s April 30 meeting at the Eccles Wildlife Education Center, 1157 S. Waterfowl Way in Farmington.
The key points in this article were generated with the help of an extensive language model and reviewed by our editorial team. The articles themselves are only written by humans.
#Utah #calls #increase #major #hunts #deer #population #begins #recover