Sportsmen for Fish & Wildlife

Many SFW members in Utah have been reporting the best deer hunt of your lives, for them, their kids and their families on our general season, public land units.

SFW Chapter Leader Brayden Richmond agrees and said about this year’s hunt, “Most people in our town are saying it is almost as good as the good old days, and the future looks even better. There are many nice big mature bucks to choose from.”

SFW Board Chairman Dave Woodhouse also agrees. “We at SFW have worked for twenty years, the 1.1 million acres of habitat restoration, fencing highways, reducing lions, and now the coyote control the last few years have pushed our herds back on top,” he said. “It was a thrill to have my 12-year-old son looking at lots of bucks all season, then choosing among them. Then there were three nice four-points the last day of the season. He was there with his grandfather, who never thought this day would come. The family deer hunt, we all looked forward to like kids at Christmas, is back! Thanks to SFW members and the DWR for making this happen!”
– – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – –
Stories and photos of successful 2015 hunts continue to come in. If you’ve got a photo or a story you’d like to tell, send them to [email protected].

Sportsmen for Fish & Wildlife (SFW) has hired Melissa Kemp as Administrative Assistant in its corporate headquarters. She will immediately begin overseeing all office administration functions for our non-profit wildlife conservation organization located at 215 North Redwood Road #1 in North Salt Lake, Utah. Most recently office manager at SN Custom Railing in Ogden, Melissa brings 10 years’ of experience to SFW. She is also a skilled bookkeeper and project coordinator.

“Melissa comes to us with the perfect skill set that will compliment SFW’s growing needs,” said Jon Larson, SFW CEO. “Our chapters and members will soon become very familiar with Melissa. She will be the first line of contact at the office, and as we move into our busy habitat projects and planning seasons.”

When she’s not in the office, Melissa can often be found hunting elk with her father and brother near her Kemmerer, WY, home or touring the West with her family.

Melissa Kemp is SFW’s new Administrative Assistant. She can be reached at [email protected].

Here are some recent updates from the Utah Moose Study, Provided by Joel Ruprecht, USU Graduate Student. This is an important project funded and supported by SFW members.

We’ve been conducting calf searches the last two weeks to see how many radio-collared cow moose produced calves this year. Of the three years we’ve been collecting this information, this has been the best year for calving rates. In the Wasatch Unit as a whole, more than 60% of the cows we surveyed had a calf with them, although calving rates were much higher in the western portion of the unit. In the North Slope of the Uintas, more than 70% of cows had calves. This is great news for the population, although calving rates only tell part of the story. We will follow up throughout the next year to see how many calves survive their first year. Moose calf survival tends to be lower and more variable than adult survival, so until the calves mature to breeding age, they are not overly important to the population.

Interestingly, we did not document any twin calves this year. However, several of our study moose have produced calves three years in a row, although we are finding it is more typical that they calve only every other year. With a little more data we hope to be able to determine what factors influence calving rates. The peak calving period for moose in Utah is late May, but we’ve documented births as early as May 17th until as late as June 10th.

One of our study moose died in the North Slope of the Uintas last month. It appeared to be a very old cow, but the carcass was mostly consumed by scavengers at the time of inspection so the cause of death is unknown.

Finally, an article on our project and this year’s calf searches was published recently in the Daily Herald. Follow this link to take a look.

Thank you.

— Joel Ruprecht