Contributors to this thread:
On the Colorado forum someone has provide information based on a report from the Game Department about the increase in the elk population since the reintroduction of wolves. Is this true? Sounds unreasonable! There is a movement to reintroduce wolves into Colorado. This report is one of their selling points.
You should be able to go back through the MT and Wyoming forums and see what the general consensus has been the last 20 years.
In Montana we are overpopulated in elk based on commission and landowner tolerance. That doesn’t mean we are overpopulated by natural carrying capacity. What wolves have done is drop heard numbers significantly in our traditional large beards in areas that offered hunters lots of opportunity to fill their freezer on a regular basis.
The northern Yellowstone herd once numbered 20,000 or more animals and supported about 2000-3000 permits a year for special late season migration hunts for decades. The General season supported plenty of opportunities for hunters outfitters and the economy in local communities down the paradise. Now there is no late season, the herd crashed to lows of about 2-3000 animals. There was a report that the Herd has rebounded to 7500 animals counted this winter but it also came out that this count was skewed due to a mild winter and unusual migration. The age class of bulls is nowhere near what it was and nor is the bull to cow ratio.
Another herd was the big hole heard. This also used to offer a ton of opportunities for people to fill the freezer on a general tag across the Southwest region of the state. This herd crashed and limited opportunities. This herd is slowly rebounding.
Is the crash of these herds all due to wolves. Maybe or maybe not, but you can surmise that it is a huge part and the reintroduction had a huge impact immediately. We now shoot and trap about 300 wolves a season from eastern Montana through all of western Montana. They have already spread to southern Wyoming so i don’t see why Colorado would have to pay to reintroduce them because they will be there soon enough.
The wolves don’t just kill the sick or the old. They kill any elk they can. They pressure elk year round and cow to calf ratios dropped significantly after their reintroduction. They have force habit changes of the wildlife in Montana. Moose resign to the dark timber much more frequently than they did before. Elk tend to be less vocal when they’re around.
I believe the Sierra Club, Defenders of Wildlife and others are pushing for the reintroduction to curtail if not shut down completely big game hunting. I hope the wolf question never gets on the ballot. The uninformed public stopped our spring bear season by voting it out. Not a stretch to see how they would vote on a wolf question.
Good post Ursman. Few people understand what is behind the continued call for protection of top predators,.... whether they fly, swim, crawl or walk. All mitigate the need for human hunters.
What year were they introduced? Link has lots of numbers for you. I don't know what all the columns mean, but you can get what there is for scientific data rather than the usual responses.
Looking at the same columns, it looks like:
2017 has 176,000 elk
2016 has 163,000 elk
2015 has 167,000 elk
2014 has 158,000 elk
2013 has 148,000 elk
2012 has 141,000 elk
2011 has 140,000 elk
2010 has 117,000 elk
2008 has 136,000 elk - not sure if this is the same as the previous ones.
Things look good in 2017. Have the winters generally been good the last few years there?
Wolves were re-introduced into the Yellowstone ecosystem in 1995. The Northern Yellowstone elk herd at that time number about 19000 and the last count done in 2018 is 7,579. When assessing the impacts of wolves on the elk population you can't just look at the trend of the total elk population in a state you need to look at just the areas that have wolves. I would guess if you looked at the hunt units in Montana that have a large wolf population you would see a decrease in the elk population and a decrease in the number of elk harvested by hunters even though the over all elk population trend is up since 2004.
My opinion is smoke and mirrors, a lot of this is said to keep people thinking, ask the locals what they see. I can say the population sure does not look like 7000---8000 head, much lower.
The overall elk population is definitely higher than when wolves were introduced. That is very misleading though because there are large thriving herds in Eastern Montana that weren't nearly as large prior to the wolves. The wolves have absolutely lowered the elk population in the greater yellowstone area, but there are still a ton of elk. If anyone drove through the madison valley in February this year you could have easily 5000 elk just on the flats.
Elk populations in Eastern Mt are decreasing,,not because of wolves but because the FWP is issuing hundreds of cow tags,
Wolves have definitely caused a reduction in herd size in some parts of the state, but the reality is that even if every wolf were gone tomorrow ,Montana's herd size is still deemed "over objective" in many areas and FWP is legally required to manage for less elk, not more.
It is an issue of how many elk are "socially acceptable" not what the habitat will sustain. Until this political reality changes and FWP is allowed to manage for biological capacity you can harp all you want about the devastation wolves are causing and it won't change a thing.
We have eleven weeks of archery and general season. On top of that, in some units there are hunts beginning in mid-August and continuing thru February.
It is what it is, and it will continue until the lobby of hunters who want more elk becomes more influential than the lobby of ag interests who view elk as competition .
Very well stated, Gerald. Thank-you.
Montana is working to reduce our ELk herds down from 170,000 to 90,000. When that happens the wolf propagandists will claim the wolf did it. The true wolf here is anti Elk stance this state has by being controlled by the far right. We could sustain far more game animals but there is a price.
Agreed Gerald, we must stand together, or fall divided. And stop shooting cows in the parts of the state WE as hunters know are down, regardless of the fact the idiots at the MFWP are issuing the tags. As far as I'm concerned cow hunting in the western portion of the state should only occur on private lands, and if there are to be cows killed on public it should be slotted for senior citizens, the disabled, and or youth hunters. Also we should chastise the so called "hunters" that are providing the big landowners who don't allow general hunting with a firing squad for the Elk genocide that they are calling the shoulder seasons... The mentality of "they issued the tag" so there is no issue with me filling it should be gone forever from a true hunters perspective. We have been having tag burning parties for over a decade now, and they are growing exponentially every year. We apply for cow, and mule deer doe tags in the areas that are struggling the worst and shouldn't have had them to begin with, and in December we all get together and have a big wild game BBQ, beers, and burn every single cow and mule deer doe tag we can get our hands on. It is up to us as hunters to come together to fight for what is right, and take our wildlife back! For right now this is the only way we can make an immediate impact. Small it may be, but immediate, and growing. (Also hunt predators)
Hey just an outsiders perspective, but the ag interests don't view elk a competition when selling those high doller guided private land hunts. I've spent some time comparing FWP objectives to estimates and as a non-resident but regular contributer to the economy of the state sure hope they have a plan to pay for game management. If they get close to their objectives it won't be worth me spending the money to hunt. I can hike for free! I agree with every thing that has been stated and it's s complex political problem. Just seems to me if you offer outfitted hunts you shouldn't have a voice when it comes to elk population... they can't have it both ways. Good luck with it I'll be out that way this fall.
IMO revenue intake plays a big part of game management decisions....quota sets and license sales. I think this is where a balancing act between license revenue intake and what the herd(s) harvest can support. More licenses sold = more revenue intake. If the F&W/DNR (or other depts) is strapped for revenue, I would not be surprised to see harvest quotas increase to bring in more revenue....and/or license costs rise. That could be at the temporary detriment of the herd. The question is whether or not the game and fish management leadership would admit they do this. I have seen white paper proposals from my state that asked how the new proposal would affect the dept's revenue intake if it was adopted. That is why I have those suspicions when I see something to do with license sales that just doesn't look or sound right.
Hopefully everyone applied for cow and doe licenses.
