SALT LAKE CITY (ABC4) — The Utah Wildlife Board has approved 200 expo permits to be offered in 2024, according to the Utah Division of Wildlife Resources.
Expo permits are reportedly offered once a year through a drawing held at the Western Hunting and Conservation Expo in Salt Lake City. Anyone can apply for the permits during the expo, officials said.
The permits provide hunting opportunities, but also the funding allocated from the permits has reportedly led to improved management of thousands of acres of land. “The expo permits not only provide a great hunting opportunity, but the funding from these yearly allocated permits has also led to the enhancement of thousands of acres of crucial habitats and the completion of important research to help us better manage big game populations in the state,” Utah Division of Wildlife Resources Wildlife Section Chief Covy Jones said.
Expo permits are available for these species in Utah — deer, elk, Pronghorn, moose, bison, mountain goat, Desert Bighorn sheep, Rocky Mountain Bighorn sheep, turkey, and black bear.
The board has also approved changes for which hunting units the expo permits are for, as well as the allocation of permits in that area. Here are the changes for elk:
- Beaver, East unit (one mid-season, any legal weapon)
- Book Cliffs, Bitter Creek/East unit (one mid-season, any legal weapon)
- Central Mtns, Manti unit (six mid-season, any legal weapon)
- Central Mtns, Nebo/San Pitch Mtns unit (one mid-season, any legal weapon)
- La Sal, La Sal Mountains unit (one mid-season, any legal weapon)
- Mt Dutton unit (one mid-season, any legal weapon)
- Panguitch Lake unit (one mid-season, any legal weapon)
- Plateau, Fishlake/Thousand Lakes unit (two mid-season, any legal weapon)
- Plateau, Fishlake/Thousand Lakes unit (one late-season, any legal weapon)
For turkey, the changes are located in Utah’s southern region. There were a record number of expo permit applications, officials said, with over 435,000 in 2023.
