Saturday, Oct. 04, 2008

Management of elk by state under fire

By Rich Landers, The Spokesman-Review

In Washington, elk hunters are grouped into the "haves" and the "have nots."

If you're among the 127 hunters who have a special permit to hunt a branch-antlered bull in the Blue Mountains this fall, chances are better than 50 percent for coming home with an elk, and a high percentage of them will be wall-hangers.

Meanwhile, the thousands of have-nots who didn't draw a special permit are limited to the general season, hunting only yearling "spike" bulls in all but a few hunting units -- and the success rates plummet to around 7 percent.

For the past few years, a bowhunter and former member of the state Fish and Wildlife Commission has been challenging the spike-only general-season elk management in the Blues.

"I have trouble seeing what it is about spike bull management that we're supposed to be happy about," said Kelly White of Kettle Falls.

"The wildlife managers sold us spike-only hunting in 1980 as a way to get more breeding bulls, increase conception rates, improve calf-to-cow ratios and build back the Blue Mountains herd. Well, they've increased the number of branch-antlered bulls, but it had no positive effect on calf recruitment. In fact, postseason calf-cow ratios have gone down."

Citing a 2001 report by former state wildlife elk biologist Lou Bender, White has been urging hunters to put pressure on Washington Fish and Wildlife Department managers to dump spike-only rules as they revise the state's big-game management plan.

"We should go back to a three- or four-point minimum requirement so we can produce more bulls that are legal to harvest," White said.

Five Eastern Washington wildlife biologists interviewed agreed that spike-only management has not improved calf ratios and produced all the results they desired.

But they disagree with much of Bender's report and White's proposal, which was formally made to the state Fish and Wildlife Commission last year.

"We have a very well-balanced age structure of bulls, with some exceptional bulls," said Pat Fowler, a 34-year veteran wildlife biologist in Walla Walla. He referred to the pending Washington state record non-typical bull elk bagged by a hunter in the Blue Mountains in September.

"That balance and most of the older trophies could be gone in two years if all general tag holders could shoot three-point and bigger bulls in this relatively open country."

But while the Blues have gained a reputation for having some trophy bulls, the total number of elk is dramatically lower than it was 25 years ago when more than 15,000 hunters crowded into the southeast corner of the state on the elk season opener.

Most notable, the Wenaha-Tucannon Wilderness area elk are down from about 2000 in the mid-80s to about 500, Fowler said.

A combination of reasons seems to be holding the elk population down, biologists say. Among them:

-- Tribal hunting is a factor, but it can't be pegged because the Nez Perce don't report their harvest.

-- Fire suppression has degraded elk habitat in many areas, particularly the Wenaha.

-- Habitat changes in fire-suppressed areas have ushered more elk south into Oregon, where the antlerless animals are overhunted in the late season.

-- High populations of cougars and bears are taking a high percentage of elk calves.

"When calf survival drops and you shoot cows, the numbers crash," Fowler said. "We have our problems to deal with in the Blues. I can tell you that going to a three-point minimum would produce fantastic hunting in the short term. But in a couple years, all the age structure and big bulls we've been growing down there would be wiped out -- and we still wouldn't have enough calves."

In the early 1980s, the Blue Mountains had 12,000 to 15,000 hunters and they killed about 840 bulls out of a total herd of 6,500, Fowler said. "Nowadays we have about 4,000 hunters killing 270 bulls from a total herd of 4,300. Management-wise, we're improving."

The percentage of larger bulls is increasing, allowing the state to increase branch-antlered bull permits in the Blues from about 80 to 90 last year and from 90 to 127 this year.

"Spike-only (management) has created a trophy opportunity that didn't exist before," said Scott McCorquodale, state elk researcher in Yakima.

Meantime, older bulls that have proven genetics for survival are doing most of the breeding, while young unproven bulls were doing much of the breeding before spike-only rules were adopted, he pointed out.

"But the fact is, we have 1,500 fewer elk in the Wenaha that aren't producing calves," Fowler said. "That's a big problem that has nothing to do with spike management."