Eight Utah Elk Units Never Left the Top 10 for Bulls, 2015 to 2024

IEight Names

All ten years had the same eight units among the top 10

DWR (Division of Wildlife Resources) includes a management-unit table showing the full bull elk harvest in its yearly report on big game. The 2024 report covers the years 2015 to 2024. We assigned ranks separately for each year, then looked for units that always placed tenth or better. Eight met that test. Listed by their 2024 ranks, they are Manti (16B), followed by Wasatch Mountains (17), then Fishlake/Thousand Lakes (25AB), then Yellowstone (9A), followed by Vernal/Bonanza (9BD). Next come Chalk Creek (6), followed by Morgan-South Rich (4), with North Slope, Summit (8A) last.

The bars marked for these eight units also represent 2024's largest eight harvests. Ninth place went to Nebo (16A, 231 bulls); Book Cliffs (10, 215) placed tenth. Both move in and out of that group: Book Cliffs ranked among the top 10 during seven years out of ten, compared with four for Nebo. With those eight units taking eight of the ten positions annually, the table's remaining 29 rows vie for two openings. Ninth was the lowest rank any of the eight reached. Only four years had even one of them fall to that rank: 2016 and 2017, plus 2018 and 2023.

The final column tracks how often a unit repeats a high finish. A value of 10 indicates a top 10 placement in every year; a zero indicates no such finish. The 2024 ranking has a tie at 15: DWR lists 172 bulls apiece for Beaver (22) as well as Boulder/Kaiparowits (25C/26). Beaver is the unit shown in the table above.

IIThe Handoff

Since 2021, Manti has ranked first each year

Wasatch Mountains (17) led during 2015, when its take was 944 bulls. It also ranked first throughout 2017 to 2020, posting totals of 721 and 897, then 807 and 853. The 2016 leader was Manti (16B), at 832. Manti reclaimed first place during 2021 with a take of 869, topping the 858 for Wasatch Mountains by 11 bulls. Manti stayed first afterward, with 907 for 2022, 928 for 2023 and 1,030 for 2024. That last year's lead over Wasatch Mountains (833) was 197.

Only Manti and Wasatch Mountains traded the lead; that pair occupied the first two ranks throughout all ten years. Their joint bull take was 1,713 against Utah's total of 8,090 for 2015, then 1,863 against 7,837 for 2024. That puts the earlier share at 21.2% and the later one at 23.8%. For Manti itself, the statewide bull-harvest share rose from 9.5% for 2015 to 13.1% for 2024.

Manti's harvest and Utah's total went in opposite directions. Compared with its own 2015 harvest, Manti's 2024 figure is higher by 33.9%; the statewide 2024 figure is lower by 3.1% than the 2015 total. The table offers no reason for the difference. A larger elk population, additional permits, more hunters in the field or improved reporting would all fit these figures. Harvest counts by themselves cannot tell which explanation applies.

IIIWhat Counts

The table gives estimates; unit rows can sum to more than the state figure

The report also explains DWR's approach. For general-season hunts, antlerless hunts and limited-entry hunts, harvest estimates start with required online reports or phone reports. DWR expands those reports according to permit counts to estimate harvest. Separate projections are made for hunts, for units and for the state as a whole. DWR cautions that the sum of unit estimates may differ from statewide totals.

In Figure 2, the statewide bull total is taken directly from DWR's table of statewide elk harvest statistics. That column supplies the denominator for every harvest share used here. Unit-row sums exceed the statewide column in three years: for 2017, 7,339 versus 7,338; for 2018, 7,852 versus 7,758; and for 2019, 6,853 versus 6,788. Such differences fall within the warning DWR gives above.

Keep two additional limits in mind. DWR's methods describe thirty wildlife management units, but this table contains 37 rows. Some units thus appear under lettered labels, such as Nebo at 16A and Manti at 16B. Our ranks use each printed row. Coverage stops at 2024, and our search did not turn up a unit table for 2025. Harvest figures for units estimate bulls taken; they are neither success rates nor draw odds. A high count means many bulls were harvested there. It provides no information about the number of elk living in that unit.

IVA Working Rule

Start with steady performance, then check permit availability

Remaining among the top 10 across ten straight years means a unit met the threshold in ten different seasons. A lone standout year cannot demonstrate that. Repeated performance is therefore this paper's lowest-cost filter. Begin with the eight units named here.

Fill in the missing measures next. For each unit, DWR's general-season hunt tables from 2024 pair the bull take with counts of hunters who went afield and success rates. Both the hunter totals and the success percentages describe those specific hunts; they leave the overall unit harvest from all hunt types unexplained. The leading two unit totals belong to Manti, at 1,030, and to Wasatch Mountains, at 833. Neither figure reports a success rate.

Consider trends alongside harvest size when ordering these eight units, drawing on the table's five-year window. Manti's harvest climbed each year starting in 2020: 731, followed by 869, then 907, then 928, and finally 1,030. Starting in 2021, Wasatch Mountains remained within a range of 826 to 869. Vernal/Bonanza reached its high of 519 during 2022, then recorded 397 for 2024. Also check the units competing for the two open spots: Book Cliffs cleared the top-10 cutoff in most years.

Compare another state's leading elk areas across five seasons in our Wyoming elk hunt areas paper. For statewide elk trends, read the Montana elk and mule deer paper.