Oh you Elk hunters are screwed now lol.
Contributors to this thread:Elk
From: greg simon
15-Jun-17
"During gun seasons there might be more slow moving vehicles on the road" What!!!! No way!!!
From: HDE
15-Jun-17
Good thing for me I have a tag this year where hunting pressure is very light compared to most :^)
From: drycreek
15-Jun-17
I believe the older a hunted animal gets, at least in general, the harder they are to kill, but knowing the difference between bow and gun hunters, I gotta call BS on that one.
I only ever killed one elk, and she was aged at 18 years. I guess she was either stupid or unlucky !
From: ohiohunter
15-Jun-17
18! Did you kick the walker out from under her before you shot?
From: IdyllwildArcher
15-Jun-17
Wait a second, how'd they get the collars on these elk in the first place?
From: Aspen Ghost
16-Jun-17
IdyllwildArcher just blew the whole study out of the water.
From: Vonfoust
16-Jun-17
Got the collar on when they were still young and dumb, waited for years for them to 'wise up'. I'm more interested in how they got the collar off of these 'Stephen Hawkings of the elk world'.
From: Rut Nut
16-Jun-17
I didn't think those collars lasted more than a year.
Besides, who cares about old cows?! Most are after the bulls!
From: Butternut40
16-Jun-17
From the research article,
"We captured elk during 2007–2012 using net guns from a helicopter when soft snow cover was present on the ground to avoid elk injuries during captures. ........ All radiocollars were outfitted with a remote drop-off device programmed to disengage prior to depletion of batteries. If the device failed, elk were recaptured by helicopter using a net-gun to retrieve the collars. All radio-collars deployed to monitor elk in this area were successfully retrieved. We had no fatalities due to capture and re-capture activities from the sample of elk that we monitored."
From: Brotsky
16-Jun-17
This was pretty interesting to read from my perspective. I killed a really old cow awhile back. I have no idea how old she was but one ivory had fallen out completely and the other was worn down to nothing but a little flat nub. She didn't seem any smarter than any other elk in that herd. I could see where this would be the case but interesting.
From: elk yinzer
16-Jun-17
How much funding was pissed away in that study? Any old mountain man or hunter that halfway pays attention could tell you that is the case. Old whitetail does are crazy smart. Not just a universal fear of human like many old bucks, but in a much more situational way. We have a doe with very unique coloration (she's nearly black) that's been hanging around our camp for at least 5 years now. We see her all summer and throughout archery, everyone knows not to shoot her. We've walked by her 20 yards away carrying bows and treestands and she'll just stare at you. She absolutely disappears during rifle season and reappears right after. Phoosh. Gone, never any sightings. No idea where she hunkers down.
From: wyobullshooter
16-Jun-17
Ha, I have to agree with elk yinzer...they paid how much for this study?
Let's see, they concluded that the older an elk gets, the more sly (i.e. hunter savvy) they become, elk that are more bold tend to be the ones that are killed, and bulls typically have shorter lifespans since they're more coveted by hunters. Hmmm, who'd ever thunk it?! ;-)
From: Surfbow
16-Jun-17
I bet there wasn't a single elk hunter involved in these studies, because a hunter could've written that whole study over one cup of coffee...
From: willliamtell
16-Jun-17
As yourself the question, if you were reincarnated as an elk, would any (legal) hunter likely ever get you? An animal that has been hunted for millennia has survival traits it hardwired into it, add experience and the close-in terrain many now occupy - advantage elk. We'd have a tough time successfully hunting animals that are wised up to hunters without their annual version of 2 am in the bar.
From: TD
16-Jun-17
Good thing the bulls get stupid for a few weeks a year......
From: IdyllwildArcher
16-Jun-17
We do studies because we don't know for sure till the results are in and the theory is proved. Our ancestors in Europe believed that if you put rags in a box, it'd spontaneously generate a family of mice. Look it up. Direct observation works sometimes, but doesn't all the time. Until it's proved, it's anecdotal. And believing things based on anecdotal evidence has led humans to believe an incredible amount of nonsense. Even in modern medicine, we've cast aside numerous medicines and beliefs just in the last 20 years that we used and believed as gospel because a subsequent study showed something we took for granted as solid, turned out to be worthless and in some cases, counterproductive.
I look at any money spent studying wildlife as money well-spent. Even if it seems like a given. Even if we already knew it as fact, we can use that study to lobby for conservation or as proof of what we know to be true.
From: Missouribreaks
16-Jun-17
I hope you all realize this is the kind of study game managers need to justify wolves as the best weapon for elk population control, especially on private lands where elk seek seclusion from human hunters.
From: kentuckbowhnter
16-Jun-17
who would have thought that older elk would go in the deepest, darkest, nasty hole to avoid hunters? money would have been just as well spent on a study about why fat people love cake.
From: IdyllwildArcher
16-Jun-17
MissB - and what % of elk are 10 year old plus? And what evidence is there to show that rifle hunters have any trouble controlling elk populations? And which private land owners want wolves on their property to control the elk populations (certainly not any rancher, perhaps the alfalfa farmers who could let a few rifle hunters on to their property to kill/drive off the elk)? The wealthy leftist whackjobs who own crazy amounts of wintering ground and would be ok with wolves, don't mind the elk being around. The only people who don't elk around are the alfalfa farmers. The ranchers don't like the elk, but they don't want the wolves and are ok with the pumpkin army decimating the herd.
From: Missouribreaks
16-Jun-17
It is the liberals, liberal game managers, and the FWP and Federal officials who cater to the liberal voters who want wolves. For sure most ranchers do not like wolves. I do not either, at least unmanaged wolves.
From: DL
21-Jun-17
Ike in California it's a waste of money. Science is not even considered when the morons on the commission make decisions. I've heard that coyote tags are coming to limit the amount killed.
From: ELKMAN
21-Jun-17
I'll be alright. I've never killed a cow, and never will. I leave that for the youth, seniors, and the impaired. Apparently they will need to find younger ones... ;-)
