DAYTON, Idaho -- Dozens of landowners are preventing hunters from using their land this year in response to frustrations over how the Idaho Department of Fish and Game is managing dwindling deer herds in Unit 73.
Those landowners live in Unit 73, an easily accessible area of prime mule deer and upland game bird habitat nestled along the Utah border between Preston and Malad.As a result of their decision, more than 85,000 acres, about half of the eastern section of the hunting unit, will be off limits to hunters this fall.
"We're not out to get hunters," said Jim Naylor, who also said he could do nothing but watch last fall as more than 700 bucks from the unit fell victim to more than 2,200 hunters.
"We all love to hunt, too," Naylor said. "But we have to have deer to hunt."
Posting the land, landowner Kenton Fredrickson said, will hopefully take some of the pressure off what he believes to be a thinned-out deer herd with only about three bucks for every 100 does, well below the 25 to 100 ratio Fish and Game claims the herd has.
In 1997 and 1998, the unit hosted limited deer hunts in order to rebuild a population that suffered from a severe 1993 winter. As of last year, Fredrickson said, numbers were on the rise and the herds were getting healthier.
"They were doing things right," Fredrickson said of Fish and Game. "You have to give them credit for that."
Then last year, Fish and Game opened up the unit to an all-buck hunt, and landowners watched as hunters from all over the region flocked to the area on opening day.
Naylor recalled seeing one group of bucks, some of them quite large, flushed from cover and forced out into the open on the first day of rifle season.
"There were 11 in all," he said. "By the time they topped the next ridge, nine had been shot. It was an absolute slaughter. It was pathetic how many people came out here to hunt last year."