Utah’s “mule deer protection act” is absurd. Of course, mule deer don’t need protection from their natural predators. They coevolved with predators long before humans migrated to North America. Ironically, those who value authentic hunting need to be protected from those who seek to turn wilderness areas into farms that manufacture what Aldo Leopold called “artificialized trophies.”
The first stage in creating docile deer was the eradication of apex predators such as wolves. This enabled the populations of mesopredators, i.e., coyotes, to expand and disrupted the ecological balance. The state government has further artificialized hunting experiences by spending hundreds of thousands of dollars on coyote bounties.