HB295 advances, but critics fear ‘unintended consequences’ of such prohibitions.
(Steve Griffin | Tribune file photo) Mule deer stand in a sliver of morning sunshine as they graze in Emigration Canyon in 2018. Lawmakers have advanced a bill that would ban baiting in big game hunting.
| Feb. 17, 2021, 2:00 p.m.
Regardless of your opinions about piling apples in the woods to attract deer, the practice spreads disease among Utah’s wild herds, according to the state’s Division of Wildlife Resources.
“Baiting is not necessarily just an ethics issue. It gets at the heart of disease transmission for many of our wildlife, specifically deer,” Riley Peck, DWR’s legislative liaison, told lawmakers last week. “CWD [chronic wasting disease] in Utah is prevalent. It does have an increased transmission rate through baiting.”
| Updated: 2:34 p.m.
While frowned upon in many states, the use of bait and trail cameras has become increasingly common for big game hunting in Utah. Some hunters are known to pile apples in the woods weeks before deer season and rig motion-activated cameras on trees.
When a deer comes into view for a tasty sugar fix, the trail cameras snap a photo and moments later the image appears in the hunter’s text-message feed. The practice all but guarantees a successful hunt and Rep. Casey Snider wants to put an end to it.
“One of the things that’s always been important to me, and it’s why I enjoy hunting, is there’s always been this notion of a hunting ethic and fair chase,” said Snider, a Republican from Paradise in Cache County. “If it was just about killing, we could probably all just go to the grocery store, but it’s about something more than that.”
SALT LAKE CITY The board that makes the final decisions on wildlife activities such as hunting and fishing, as well as how wildlife are managed, is seeking two people to replace a pair of outgoing members.
The seven-member Utah Wildlife Board will lose its chair, Byron Bateman, and Donnie Hunter. Their six-year appointment will run out on Aug. 1. The two have served the northern and southern regions respectively since 2015.
As a result, the Utah Department of Natural Resources will open up the application process next week. It s up to Gov. Spencer Cox to approve the final appointment of the two new members and the state senate to confirm the appointees, but officials for the Utah Division of Wildlife Resources say anyone can apply to serve on the board.
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