Your inquiry, as to the year, must have some reluctance for you. It doesn’t to me.
It was about two years after the State went to the 30 unit management. Maybe three, I’d have to dig why to deep for what its worth to me.
The incident happened during a visit Director Sheehan and Assistant Director (future Director) Mike Faust came down to attend a Wayne County Commissioner’s meeting in Bicknell. The Director came the evening before to tour the pheasant raising facility our local sportsmen, in partnership with the DWR local employee, had completed that spring and was full of pheasants we were growing to release for public hunting. It was the first year we did that here in Sevier County. After the tour with the Director, I invited he and some other visitors over to my home for a steak barbecue. We spent the evening together and I talked mule deer recover none stop for most of the evening. I was mostly lamenting that the Wildlife Board had not put more specific management requirements into the new unit management regulation. More that would have required more pro activity than simpling a new name to call the old five region system. He was open and receptive.
At the end of the evening he invited me to ride over to the Commissioner’s Meeting with he and Mr Faust. I accepted the invitation. The drive over pretty was much taken up with a conversation with issues the DWR leadership was expecting to discuss with the Wayne County Commissioner’s. The meeting ended up being a tour of Boulder Mt. and issues associated with recent fires and trout stocking frustration expressed by the Commissioner’s. On the tour the Director and Assistance road together and I road with one of the other guests. We toured for the better part of 6 hours, give or take. (Not all the details come to mind at this point, it was nearly ten years ago). At the end of the day, the three of us rode back to Richfield together. The conversation regarding meeting quickly turned from the Commissioner’s Meeting to their concern for the number of cougars and their impact on game animals and equal concern for a rapidly increase black bear population, and what could be done to mitigate the predator harvest. Then it turned to sportsmen and hunting opportunities. They both expressed a desire to spread the opportunities for hunters to hunt as often as possible by moving the tag allocation strategy from multiple species opportunities each year, such as, some hunters having a mule deer tag, an antlerless elk tag, and a spike bull tag….. while another hunter may not have a tag for anything. They both agreed that sooner than later that a one, single species tag should be used to manage maximum distribution of hunter opportunity. This, they believed would allow the most hunters to hunt each year. (To my knowledge, it is the one any only time I ever heard any DWR employee discuss that specific subject. However it was shortly after that I excused myself from further meetings with the State hunting bureaucracy, so it’s very possible it’s been discussed many times by them, since then.)
Now clarify my previous claim, regarding unit management plans. When we were about 30 minutes from Richfield, I decided I was going to interject my specific concern for restoring the mule deer population, again, now that unit management was in place to more readily allow for that. (Basically the same concerns I had expressed to the Director the previous evening.) The second I brought the subject back up, the Director turned to me, and based on my best recollection said, , we are never, ever, going to get bogged down managing every unit in this State differently and have our people running around helter skelter all over this State trying to manage 30 different programs.
You will notice, I have removed the quotation marks this time and have gone back and remove the quotation marks from my post number #133, because I could very well may not have the Director words shared perfectly and I don’t want to be sued, for lying, by either of these gentleman.
ridge….. I doubt seriously, you will believe me, and I can’t prove anything, so you can take it for what it’s worth, again, I no longer have a dog in the fight and you’re certainly free to disregard and/or dismiss anything or everything I say. It matters not to me.
Bottomline, regarding your question, I don’t remember the year, the year didn’t matter to me at the time.