The Division of Wildlife Resources announced this week that this winter, 1,433 big game animals were captured, providing important data about big game herds across the state. Over 1,000 were deer and the rest were a mix of elk, bighorn sheep, moose, mountain goats, and bison. “We have been conducting these captures and collecting data for over a decade in Utah,” DWR Big Game Projects Coordinator Kent Hersey said. “The amount of body fat a deer has going into winter influences how well they survive the winter. The amount of body fat a female deer has coming out of winter can impact the weight of the fawn at birth and how fast the newborn fawn grows. Those things, in turn, help the overall population.” During this year’s captures, adult deer across the state were in average to below-average nutritional condition, likely due to the hot dry summer conditions last year. Fawn weights were highly variable with some really small fawns and some big, and everything in between. Fortunately, this has been a very mild winter, which is great for mule deer survival. However, if we don’t get good spring precipitation, it could cause nutritional problems for deer during the summer. For the complete DWR news release, visit https://wildlife.utah.gov/news/utah-wildlife-news/2276-big-game-animals-assessed-gps-collared-during-2025-26-winter-captures.html.
