Antler hunters stay on roads and trails

As you look this spring for antlers shed by big game animals, it's important to look for them only on foot. Remember to keep your off-highway vehicle and truck only on roads and trails that are open to their use.

This area in southeastern Utah shows the damage trucks, jeeps and off-highway vehicles can do when they're taken illegally off-road.

Photo by Brent Stettler

If you take your OHV or truck off of legal roads and trails, you can do serious damage to the habitat that deer, elk and other wildlife rely on.

Muddy and soft

The ground is muddy in the early spring. Vehicles can easily leave deep tracks this time of the year. Those tracks cause erosion and reduce the land's ability to support deer, elk and other wildlife. And the scars take years to heal. They're an eyesore that causes people to further oppose OHV use and shed antler hunting.

Look for sheds on foot

If you'll follow some simple rules provided by the Division of Wildlife Resources, you can have fun collecting shed antlers without damaging the landscape and causing animals stress:

• Once you arrive at your shed antler hunting area, park your vehicle and hunt for shed antlers on foot.
• Once you've found some antlers, pack them to the nearest road. Then leave them near the side of the road until you can drive back to pick them up.

Please leave the area as good as you found it. Don't be responsible for more land closures and vehicle restrictions in Utah.

Northern Utah closed until April 12

In northern Utah, you may not collect shed antlers until April 12. The shed antler gathering season in northern Utah runs from April 12, 2008 to Jan. 31, 2009. Across the rest of Utah, you can collect antlers year-round.

These deer antlers are still attached to their skull plate. That means the animals did not shed them as part of their annual life cycle. These antlers are illegal to pick up and keep.

Photo by Brent Stettler

The antler gathering restriction in northern Utah was imposed to reduce stress to big game animals during a time of year when the animals are coming out of the winter and are in their worst shape.

The closure also helps reduce damage to the wet roads and rangelands.

Don't pick them up

Please remember that you may not collect antlers that are still attached to a skull plate.

This restriction was enacted after DWR conservation officers discovered people were shooting trophy animals on their winter range. In the spring, they'd return and retrieve the heads and antlers of the animals they had poached.

If they were stopped and questioned, they would simply say that the animal must have died of natural causes, and they were lucky to find its antlers.