Letter to the Editor: Utah Division of Wildlife Resources?

By KATE WEBB Kaysville

Editor,
Or should I say ‘Utah’s Determined to Watch you Retire’ before you are ever successful in a hunt drawing?
It is really sad and quite pathetic that every hunt in Utah should be considered once in a lifetime. Things seemed so much simpler in the days of drawing names from a barrel in front of the general public where points meant how many times your name was entered in the drawing, not some mathematical equation that only the DWR can solve.
I guess it is easier for DWR employees, Hunter Education instructors and their families to draw permits with this confusing computer point system that is done in secret. Year after year I have been frustrated with this system as well as most every hunter I know. Most older hunters have just stopped applying for hunts and young hunters are basically handed a permit, gun and guide in order to get them hunting. Remember those of us between 18 and 55?
Utah needs to stop catering to the youth with the special hunts and extended seasons. I love kids as much as anyone but I waited until I was 12 to hunt upland game and 14 before I could hunt deer. The youth can wait their turn just like I did. There is nothing more terrifying than a bunch of 8 year old kids storming the mountains with high powered rifles, parents with them or not.
It is not only the hunters that suffer anymore. With the officers busy counting dollars and fishing Scofield, Utah’s wildlife is being neglected as well. I have not been checked for hunting permits, seen big game checkpoint stations or upland game study checkpoints for years. So, where is all our money going? To the endangered June sucker? Cutthroats in Strawberry? Turkeys on private land?
Should I not be able to voice my opinion about where my money is going? I mean come on DWR, where are you guys and what are you doing? I have made calls in the past to report chukkar poaching and guzzler damage in the West Desert but that must be too far for you to drive. The season still opens in August for some ignorant hunters.
I’ve seen stringers full of cutthroat trout come out of Strawberry but no wildlife officers were at the cleaning stations I’ve watched boats fill their coolers with smallmouth bass at Jordanelle and Deer Creek. Wake up DWR and stop neglecting Utah’s wildlife and making unnecessary changes that only benefit yourselves.
Being unsuccessful in a drawing would be a lot less painful if I knew my money was making a difference for the future of Utah’s wildlife and hunting. Every hunter disgusted with DWR needs to stop applying for drawings or we need to voice our opinions for something to change before hunting in Utah is no longer an option.