Severe drought devastating Utah's wildlife

The picture painted at Monday's emergency session of the Utah Wildlife Board was not pretty — low reservoirs, dry streams, dying vegetation, dead and dying fish, more forest fires and serious threats to wildlife.

With few exceptions, the outcomes will be unavoidable. Only rain would help, and the forecast predicts very little in the coming months.

The seven-member wildlife board heard about water conditions, fires, range conditions and fish and wildlife updates. It was asked to take action on a drought management plan, which it approved, and on increasing hunt permits on deer does and elk cows to prevent winter starvation, which it also did.

There will be 1,500 additional doe permits for 2002 in the Northeastern Region in order to try and reduce impact on already poor winter range. And, there will be 855 additional cow permits for the Northeastern and Southern regions in hopes of reducing competition with deer for limited food.

Because of the fire in the Book Cliffs area, which has burned nearly 60 percent of the unit, the board also voted to cancel the trophy elk hunt this fall for 36 hunters and allow them to hunt when the unit reopens.

The board was not surprised to hear Utah was in a severe drought but rather how deeply it is cutting into Utah's water supply.

Randall Julander of the Natural Resources Conservation Service, U.S. Department of Agriculture, explained that the 2001-2002 snowpack was dismal and that practically all areas south of the Provo River, "were in the bottom two or three worst snowpack years we've had. Half of the snowpack we received came before the Olympics."

"The current soil moisture in some areas is running between 1 and 5 percent on the surface, which is extremely low. It would be like taking a handful of soil, putting it in an oven at 350 degrees for an hour. So, even if we have a decent snowpack this winter we still may be in a drought because much of the water will seep into the soil."

A good portion of Utah is classified as being in an exception drought, which is the harshest rating given and called a "one-in-100-year event." With the exception of the West Desert, the rest of the state is classified as extreme and severe.

Reservoirs in the northern areas of the state, he continued, were in the best shape because as part of the Central Utah Project they were larger and had more storage area.