Salt Lake City — The Utah Wildlife Board approved some updates for bison hunting and a few other rule changes during a public meeting held Thursday.
Bison hunting changes
The wildlife board approved adjustments to some of the existing bison hunts, as well as the creation of a new cow bison hunt that would be held during the 2026 and 2027 hunting seasons. As part of the hunting season changes, the board also confirmed that the bison archery hunt would continue to be the final hunt of each season, ending on Jan. 31.
“These changes will help us to better manage the herd to the population objective and maintain the bull-cow ratio, which will help address current drought conditions,” Utah Division of Wildlife Resources Northern Region Wildlife Biologist Sam Robertson said. “The updates should also improve hunter distribution and hunt quality, while avoiding changes in bison distribution.”
The changes will be implemented for the 2026 and 2027 hunting seasons.
The board also approved a new Book Cliffs Bison Management Plan. The previous plan was approved in 2007, and a committee was formed to address the challenges facing this particular herd and hunting unit. The new plan will increase the bison population objective and split it between the three subunits — Bitter Creek, Little Creek and South — for a total of 650 wintering adult bison, rather than 450.
“The reason for this increase is because the distribution of the bison herd on the Bitter Creek subunit has greatly increased,” DWR Northeastern Region Wildlife Biologist Clint Sampson said. “Thousands of acres of habitat have been restored in recent years to provide additional feed, and we have also repaired ponds, built more guzzlers and worked on spring developments. This has helped the bison herds to spread out more across the entire Book Cliffs area.”
Updated hunting relief options related to natural disasters
Recent wildfires and other natural disasters prompted the DWR to propose updates to its administrative rule, adding some relief options for affected permit holders. The board approved the changes, which include allowing one or more of the following options for hunters (both residents and nonresidents) when a natural disaster impacts them and prevents their participation in the hunt listed on their permit:
- Reinstating their bonus or preference points
- Waiving their waiting period, if applicable
- Refunding their permit fee, minus a $25 processing fee
In order to be eligible for the relief options, the hunter must fill out an application and submit it to the DWR within 30 days of the last day of the hunting season listed on their permit. They must also include documentation of the natural disaster that caused the impacts and include notarized statements of how the disaster restricted their ability to travel, displaced them or restricted them from being able to safely hunt. The associated permit for the affected hunt must also be submitted to the DWR.
If a natural disaster is impacting a hunting unit, this rule change will allow the DWR director to grant relief to the affected hunters if the following criteria are met:
- More than 50% of hunting opportunities are unavailable.
- Access to more than 50% of public land within an individual hunt unit has been closed.
- due to administrative actions of the state or federal government.
If these criteria are met, the DWR director could offer one or more of the following types of relief:
- Reinstate bonus or preference points
- Waive the waiting period, if applicable
- Refund the permit fee, minus the $25 processing fee
- Extend the hunting opportunity (for the same season and unit) to the subsequent year
Updates to the West Cache elk extended archery hunt
The board also approved modifications to the hunt boundary for the 2026-27 West Cache elk extended archery hunt and the extension of the season to Jan. 31. (Previously, it ended on Dec. 15.) These changes will help reduce depredation concerns in the areas that see property damage and safety concerns, which have been increasing in recent years. The changes will also provide hunters with additional hunting opportunities, particularly in areas where rifle hunting would be unsafe.
The wildlife board also requested that the DWR look into the memorandum of understanding for hunting on Antelope Island and to do more research on the current hunting season dates and hunting structure and make any needed adjustments. This would be in an effort to balance the number of hunters on the island and to possibly adjust the hunting season dates to earlier before deer antlers break during mating-season battles.
Approved CWMU permits
The DWR oversees the Cooperative Wildlife Management Unit program, which allocates hunting permits to private landowners who then provide hunting opportunities to public and private hunters for a variety of wildlife species. The CWMU program in Utah has opened more than 2 million acres of private land to the public for hunting.
The board approved applications for two new CWMUs, six application changes for existing CWMUs and the renewal of 15 other CWMU applications, for a total of 133 CWMUs for the 2026 hunting seasons. The board also approved two variance requests for two existing CWMUs.
The wildlife board also approved an additional 582 private permits and 125 public permits for CWMUs in 2026. Previously, a total of 2,805 private permits and 458 public permits were approved for CWMUs in 2026.
Mandatory testing for chronic wasting disease
During Thursday’s board meeting, the DWR also provided information to the Utah Wildlife Board about a 2026 requirement for hunters to submit a sample from deer harvested during the general-season any-legal-weapon buck deer hunt in the Ogden hunting unit, in order to test for chronic wasting disease.
Chronic wasting disease is a transmissible disease that affects the nervous systems of deer, elk and moose. The disease was first discovered in Utah in 2002, in a buck deer taken during the rifle hunt near Vernal. The disease is caused by a misfolded protein, called a prion, that accumulates in the animal’s brain and spinal cord. (The same type of misfolded protein causes “mad cow disease” in cows and scrapie in sheep.) Infected animals develop brain lesions, become emaciated, appear listless and have droopy ears. They may also salivate excessively and will eventually die. Deer in the early stages of chronic wasting disease appear healthy — including animals that may be harvested by hunters — so the only way to know if your deer is infected is to get it tested.
Infected animals may shed prions in their urine, feces and saliva, even when they aren’t showing symptoms. Transmission may occur directly through contact with an infected animal or indirectly through environmental contamination. (A dead carcass can contaminate the soil.) Prions are extremely resilient in the environment and can stay infectious for many years.
State law allows the DWR to identify units where hunters can be required to submit samples for chronic wasting disease testing.
“Previously, it was only required for hunters to submit a sample from deer harvested in the limited-entry any-legal-weapon buck deer hunts in the La Sal, Castle Valley and the La Sal, Moab Valley areas,” DWR State Wildlife Veterinarian Ginger Stout said. “However, we are seeing a few other hotspot areas for the disease in our deer and elk populations, so we will be implementing mandatory CWD testing for the Ogden unit as well. These additional samples will help us better track the prevalence of this disease and its spread in Utah.”
The mandatory CWD testing for the Ogden unit will only be for the general-season, any-legal-weapon buck deer hunt. The hunt runs from Oct. 17-25, 2026, and any hunter who harvests an animal will be required to submit the lymph nodes for disease testing.
“The Ogden unit was selected because it has the most recent detection of CWD in the state, with the closest positive on the East Canyon unit,” Stout said. “That detection was in an elk, with no other deer detections nearby, which is abnormal for the typical progression of CWD. We would like to learn more about how CWD is behaving in this unit and determine an accurate prevalence of the disease.”
In addition, the DWR will continue to set up monitoring checkpoints — rotating between various hunting units across the state on a five-year schedule — in order to sample Utah’s deer populations for CWD. Hunters who voluntarily go to the check stations will receive a free CWD test if they harvested a deer on one of the units being sampled that year.
You can watch Thursday’s entire wildlife board meeting on the Utah Department of Natural Resources YouTube channel.
