Henry's Bison

[jims]

I am curious what is going on with the Henry's bison herd? I noticed they are only giving 1 either sex nonres tag this coming year and 0 cow tags. Has the drought or disease done something to the herd? Draw odds are going to be horrendous this coming year! I sure wish I would have started applying for moose or sheep rather than bison in UT! With 0 tags going to the high bonus pt nonres applicants it could take 10 lifetimes to draw a tag! Good luck to everyone that applies!

 

[Packout]

The UDWR, with the help of SFW, purchased a large quantity of grazing permits (AMUs) on the Henries unit. The grazing permits were then transferred to wildlife use, buffalo. This means that the buffalo herd can now grow quite a bit. There is no real reason to hunt the buffalo now, because they are far below their herd objective. The hope is that within the next few years we could see a huge increase in tags after the herd reaches objective. I think they are just giving a few token tags to keep some opportunity open for the hunters. You are right though, it could take 10 lifetimes to draw a tag at the present tag levels.

 

[jims]

Thanks for the info! It seems like when I first started applying they were having problems keeping buff numbers from booming. No one was applying for the Antelope Island hunts and there were more tags available on the Henry's. It has amazed me how conservative UDWR has been the past 5 or so years.

When I saw there were 0 cow tags available this year and only 1 nonres any bison I started to wonder what the heck was going on! It is great to hear there hasn't been a die-off and the herd is likely still healthy and possibly expanding! Your answer makes a lot of sense and it would be incredible if the herd expands. Hopefully it won't take long and there will be a few more tags available! From what I've heard it is still a super tough hunt. I know a guy that hunted last year and ended up not filling his tag.

Do you happen to know if herd population data is available somewhere? I haven't been able to find any of that kind of data for the past few years on the UT site?