Do hunting unit geographical sizes tell anything about that unit?

[matechakeric]

counties in the states are often sized based off their human population. massive counties like San Bernardino (CA)have very low densities of people compared to a tiny county like Orange County which has very high population densities.

are hunting units sized similarly? in the Wyoming map below, unit 39 is tiny compared to neighboring 54 (look how massive 129 is). Are units usually shaped around water drainages or other factors?

 

[ntodwild]

It's a good question but in my experience often size of units don't match game numbers or even quality of game. Depending on state the units could merely be broken into boundaries (roads, ridges, water/rivers and so on). My experience has been that unit boundaries in most states have been in place for decades and for whatever reason they were decided way back when doesn't necessarily correlate to what is taking place today in regard to animal populations, quality of game and so on. Im no expert on this, just my observation over the years.

It would be interesting to see what others have to say. Maybe someone who is a Fish and Wild Life Biologist could pipe in.

 

[kwyeewyk]

Wyoming in particular bases the areas off of herds (which is why elk, deer, pronghorn have different hunt areas), if you read the job completion reports they show what herds are in which units. Small unit doesn't necessarily mean dense elk and vice versa, look at 100, lots of elk, huge unit. 73, not so many elk but relatively small unit. 129 massive unit, few elk, 77 tiny unit, crazy dense elk at end of season.