Rack approves 2025 deer permit recommendations after debate over Thousand Lakes weapon split
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Summary
The Rack accepted the Division’s deer permit recommendations for 2025, including several limited‑entry and general‑season adjustments and the new 20% automatic adjustment rule. A separate motion to change the Thousand Lakes limited‑entry weapon split to match the statewide standard failed before the full package passed unanimously.
The Rack voted to approve the Utah Division of Wildlife Resources’ 2025 deer permit recommendations after discussion of multiple units and a contentious vote over the Thousand Lakes limited‑entry weapon split.
Division big‑game staff summarized that the state is implementing a direction from the statewide deer plan to automatically adjust buck permits where the model produces change below 20%, and that most units saw only small changes. Staff said the recommendation set focused on a handful of general‑season units and a few limited‑entry units where modelling and local data justified changes. "Using the data that we use to come up with our buck permits to just automatically make the adjustments on units where the change would be less than 20% difference from the previous year," Dax said.
The Thousand Lakes limited‑entry unit drew the most discussion. Division staff said the proposed weapon split for Thousand Lakes is 40% rifle, 30% archery, 30% muzzleloader — a different split than the division’s typical 60/20/20 split — intended to provide a restricted archery opportunity and spread hunter pressure. Several Rack members questioned whether that split would make the unit too easy to draw for archers and encouraged sticking with the standard limited‑entry split.
Scott (Rack member) moved a substitute motion to accept the plan as presented but revert Thousand Lakes to the standard 60/20/20 split; that motion failed on a recorded vote (4 in favor, 5 opposed). After additional discussion members then moved and seconded a motion to accept the deer permit recommendations as presented by the Division; that motion passed unanimously.
Division staff described the modelling inputs used for general‑season permit recommendations: buck‑to‑doe ratios, fawn recruitment, survival from collar data, population size, and recent hunter success. Dax emphasized that the modelling can be proactive for some deer units (for example, cutting permits where fawn survival from an exceptionally dry winter already indicates future shortfalls) and reactive for others. The division also recommended maintaining a 750 permit allocation for the early‑season youth "any‑bull" draw‑only tag.
Public commenters and interest groups weighed in. Backcountry Hunters & Anglers and other organizations expressed support for most of the division’s recommendations; Sportsmen & Wildlife (SFW) urged caution on Beaver West (recommended 900 permits) and asked that some units remain at last year’s numbers to maintain quality. The Mule Deer Foundation (MDF) supported the division’s recommendations generally.
The Rack encouraged the division to publish more plain‑language information and graphical demonstrations about how the deer model produces permit recommendations to improve public understanding and reduce confusion about apparent discrepancies between local observations and model results.
Actions recorded: a failed motion to accept the package with the Thousand Lakes split changed (moved by Scott; vote 4‑5), and a later successful motion to accept the Division recommendations as presented (moved by Braden, seconded by Bryce) passed unanimously.
