Estimated read time: Less than a minute
This archived news story is available only for your personal, non-commercial use. Information in the story may be outdated or superseded by additional information. Reading or replaying the story in its archived form does not constitute a republication of the story.
LOGAN, Utah (AP) - An ongoing wildlife study is tracking the mortality rates of Utah's mule deer population.
The Herald Journal of Logan reports preliminary data from the three-year program has found about 85 percent of adult female deer survive from year to year. Only 50 percent of fawns survive.
Utah's Division of Wildlife Resources spokesman Mark Hadley says the study began in 2009. Biologists tagged more than 400 deer that year with electronic collars in seven areas across the state.
If the collar stops moving for an extended period of time, it sends a mortality signal to biologists.
Conservation outreach manager Phil Douglass says vehicle collisions, cold weather and diet are all factors in deer mortality.
Hadley says the project has an annual cost of about $224,000.
(Copyright 2011 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)
