Montana Elk Plan Public Scoping Meetings

[Beignet]

I’ll give the new Blackfoot biologist some cred. He’s not new to FWP and seems well intentioned and willing to listen. Worth noting that they said they’re getting a lot of input from landowners even if they weren’t present at the meeting.

Couple of folks had some suggestions in advance of the upcoming scoping meeting in Lincoln, and seemed intent on getting the word out. I’m sure it’ll be better attended. Problem stated with some of the more rural meetings is that they no longer have much in the way of local media beyond Facebook groups and it’s hard to make folks aware. The one landowner in attendance had just heard about the meeting the day before.

As Ben Lamb said, folks can still comment online. FWP says there will be another comment period after the initial draft, and yet another comment period following that. Both to take place over the winter when everyone will probably be less busy. Everyone kind of agreed that it will be easier to respond to things once FWP has collectively accumulated everyone’s thoughts into an initial draft scoping document.

As one attendee said, “When I hear folks bitching about something down the line I’ll ask if they attended any meetings or submitted comments.” So, submit some dang comments, folks!

Glad I attended and got a chance to interact with regional staff and a few other concerned folks. If nothing else it was a good excuse to patronize Trixi’s afterward. The shake-a-day pots are pretty fat there right now, FYI.

 

[MTelkHuntress]

there's been some complaints that the meetings were too focused on only the few districts in the meeting notice

This was my concern about the upcoming Missoula meeting. Lots of folks seems to hunt elsewhere and far. I'm still hoping for some good discussion.

 

[Nameless Range]

Chatted with a bio yesterday. I think there is reason for alarm.

-A lot of districts out there have less comments than you have fingers on your hand - even if you're missing a few.
-Even the most-hunted districts out there - the Elkhorns for example - only have a couple dozen.
-There were as many people at the meeting in Boulder(pop. 1,027) as there were at the meeting in Bozeman( pop. 50,000).

One week remains and this is a big damn deal. Comment!

Elk Plan Public Scoping - Hunting District Objectives | Montana FWP

FWP began developing a revised statewide Elk Management Plan in 2020. The next step is to gather input on current elk population objectives and other local challenges that could be addressed in the revised Elk Management Plan. 

fwp.mt.gov

 

[MTelkHuntress]

Around 25 people showed up in Missoula. I took a lot of notes but here's some main points.
There was definitely an emphasis on managing on an Elk Management Unit (EMU) level and I also didn't like this. Elk may be under objective in one unit but elk management unit is within objective.

They said collar data wasn't part of their program for region 2 and that effort was going elsewhere.

Areas where habitat isn't good, elk pregnancy rates drop.

There was emphasis on managing objectives on an average rather than year by year.

Actual bull to cow ratios are usually higher than the minimum (although not by much in some areas).

Biologists are very familiar with elk that do not leave private property (one person said then why do we count them towards the objective then).

One landowner said he kind of stopped killing elk on his land in hopes they would repopulate and move off to public.

One small landowner at the end got up and tried to explain the problems with the department (he quoted Worsech a lot and talked about the biologists leaving as well as hunters not being able to find elk on public anymore).

Some units haven't been at objective and the proposal was to lower the objective.

Should we use harvest data as objectives?

The biologists recognized that their counts don't show where those elk are during hunting season.

There was talk about setting sub objectives for some units.

Our meeting ran long since people were asking questions and making comments during the presentation.

Shoulder seasons were a success in region 2.

Truthfully, I'm frustrated with this whole thing but I hope we can get more people to comment. My comments for the recent elk recommendations took me hours to write but the elk scoping comments were fairly quick to write. I do think this meeting was helpful in understanding what the biologists want to know from people.

 

[Ben Lamb]

Around 25 people showed up in Missoula. I took a lot of notes but here's some main points.
There was definitely an emphasis on managing on an Elk Management Unit (EMU) level and I also didn't like this. Elk may be under objective in one unit but elk management unit is within objective.

They said collar data wasn't part of their program for region 2 and that effort was going elsewhere.

Areas where habitat isn't good, elk pregnancy rates drop.

There was emphasis on managing objectives on an average rather than year by year.

Actual bull to cow ratios are usually higher than the minimum (although not by much in some areas).

Biologists are very familiar with elk that do not leave private property (one person said then why do we count them towards the objective then).

One landowner said he kind of stopped killing elk on his land in hopes they would repopulate and move off to public.

One small landowner at the end got up and tried to explain the problems with the department (he quoted Worsech a lot and talked about the biologists leaving as well as hunters not being able to find elk on public anymore).

Some units haven't been at objective and the proposal was to lower the objective.

Should we use harvest data as objectives?

The biologists recognized that their counts don't show where those elk are during hunting season.

There was talk about setting sub objectives for some units.

Our meeting ran long since people were asking questions and making comments during the presentation.

Shoulder seasons were a success in region 2.

Truthfully, I'm frustrated with this whole thing but I hope we can get more people to comment. My comments for the recent elk recommendations took me hours to write but the elk scoping comments were fairly quick to write. I do think this meeting was helpful in understanding what the biologists want to know from people.

Super helpful, @MTelkHuntress. Thanks for being the person in the arena!

 

[Gerald Martin]

One comment from @MTelkHuntress synopsis mirrored the report at the Bozeman meeting that bull numbers were mostly at or above the minimum bull objectives.

Sounds great for FWP to report that. Until they follow up with the number that the bull objective is 7% of the overall herd.

Great job FWP. Seven live bulls (including off limit spikes) per 100 cows and calves at the end of the season is an outstanding number!!!

 

[YukonGold]

One comment from @MTelkHuntress synopsis mirrored the report at the Bozeman meeting that bull numbers were mostly at or above the minimum bull objectives.

Sounds great for FWP to report that. Until they follow up with the number that the bull objective is 7% of the overall herd.

Great job FWP. Seven live bulls (including off limit spikes) per 100 cows and calves at the end of the season is an outstanding number!!!

7% of the population being bulls is not the same as 7 bulls: 100 cows.

edit: usually 7% bulls in the population equates to around 10 bulls per 100 cows, but that will depend on calf recruitment too. Most of the GMUS appear to have 10 bulls per 100 cows as their objective.

 

[Gerald Martin]

7% of the population being bulls is not the same as 7 bulls: 100 cows.

That’s why I said 7bulls/100cows and calves.

How is it different? What are the correct numbers if that isn’t?

 

[YukonGold]

That’s why I said 7bulls/100cows and calves.

How is it different? What are the correct numbers if that isn’t?

I edited my post when I saw your inclusion of calves, my bad.

usually 7% bulls in the population equates to around 10 bulls per 100 cows, but that will depend on calf recruitment too. Most of the GMUS appear to have 10 bulls per 100 cows as their objective.

 

[YukonGold]

here's some math (took me a bit to understand the difference here too, especially when they start throwing out bull:cow ratios as a percentage)

say you have 250 cows, 25 bulls, and 65 calves. the bull:cow ratio is 25/250, or 10%. But your total % bulls in the population is 25/340, or 7.4%.

 

[Gerald Martin]

We often see cow/calf ratios of 100/22.

Bull/cow ratios of 10/100. Includes spikes that were not legal game during the hunting season.

If half of the calf recruitment is statistically male and not legal for harvest until they are 2 1/2 years old but are included in the bull counts at 1 1/2 years old, how many legal branch antlered bulls are actually on the landscape and legal for harvest in these units?

 

[YukonGold]

We often see cow/calf ratios of 100/22.

Bull/cow ratios of 10/100. Includes spikes that were not legal game during the hunting season.

If half of the calf recruitment is statistically male and not legal for harvest until they are 2 1/2 years old but are included in the bull counts at 1 1/2 years old, how many legal branch antlered bulls are actually on the landscape and legal for harvest in these units?

well any spikes counted in the spring survey will be legal bulls the following hunting season. so depends when you're looking at it. those 25 bulls in my above example would all be legal in the fall.

 

[Gerald Martin]

My guess is that the number of legal bulls post season is less than 2/100.

At the elk symposium Craig Jourdanaiss presented info that tracked bulls in the John Long mountains south of Missoula as having less than a 6% chance of living to six years old.

 

[YukonGold]

My guess is that the number of legal bulls post season is less than 2/100.

At the elk symposium Craig Jourdanaiss presented info that tracked bulls in the John Long mountains south of Missoula as having less than a 6% chance of living to six years old.

seems pretty standard to me. Montana manages to opportunity, not quality. any general unit is likely to have a very low proportion of older age class bulls, but as long as you have the cows popping out new bulls every year then bull cow ratios are going to be stable.

don't they classify spikes vs adults on their surveys? it would be an easy thing to ask for.

 

[Nameless Range]

We on HuntTalk have many times acknowledged that Montana's season length is in places a detriment to elk distribution. 3 to 6 months of pressure teaches elk where not to be. We all know this and it is something I will be including in my comments.

That said, I heard a very large block management participating landowner say yesterday, that, though he is a supporter of the block management concept and participates, that Montana's seasons are too damn long, and the effect that participating in BM for many months has on his ranch wears him down.

I think this is an additional important angle from which to talk about our season length and why we should explore truncating it. The length of our seasons will eventually negatively affect the BM program as well, and it wouldn't surprise me if some landowners who would participate in BM as a type 1 or at all, may not because the headache just lasts too long.

 

[Gerald Martin]

seems pretty standard to me. Montana manages to opportunity, not quality. any general unit is likely to have a very low proportion of older age class bulls, but as long as you have the cows popping out new bulls every year then bull cow ratios are going to be stable.

don't they classify spikes vs adults on their surveys? it would be an easy thing to ask for.

This does seem to be the “acceptable” standard for MT hunters. Rather eye opening when you see units next door to these units that include the Flying D and another unit that includes the CA Ranch reporting 40% bull populations.

Seems like a lot of opportunity to explore ways FWP can raise bull populations without increasing the total amount of elk in the state.

 

[Beignet]

We on HuntTalk have many times acknowledged that Montana's season length is in places a detriment to elk distribution. 3 to 6 months of pressure teaches elk where not to be. We all know this and it is something I will be including in my comments.

That said, I heard a very large block management participating landowner say yesterday, that, though he is a supporter of the block management concept and participates, that Montana's seasons are too damn long, and the effect that participating in BM for many months has on his ranch wears him down.

I think this is an additional important angle from which to talk about our season length and why we should explore truncating it. The length of our seasons will eventually negatively affect the BM program as well, and it wouldn't surprise me if some landowners who would participate in BM as a type 1 or at all, may not because the headache just lasts too long.

I personally think this is an important element to include in any comments on units that currently have a shoulder season.

The sentiment seems to be gaining ground from my own anecdotal conversations with folks afield and at the range.

 

[MTelkHuntress]

There was mention of a unit where the bull numbers are really low. The biologist said half the sportsmen wanted it to go to a draw to get to the numbers up and the other half liked their opportunity to hunt close to town. I don't see the value in having so much hunting opportunity if bull numbers are so low. I think emphasis on the resource needs to be made as well.

There was also a point about how connecting landowners with hunters that have a cow tag for a unit worked really well for game damage issues.

 

[antlerradar]

We on HuntTalk have many times acknowledged that Montana's season length is in places a detriment to elk distribution. 3 to 6 months of pressure teaches elk where not to be. We all know this and it is something I will be including in my comments.

That said, I heard a very large block management participating landowner say yesterday, that, though he is a supporter of the block management concept and participates, that Montana's seasons are too damn long, and the effect that participating in BM for many months has on his ranch wears him down.

I think this is an additional important angle from which to talk about our season length and why we should explore truncating it. The length of our seasons will eventually negatively affect the BM program as well, and it wouldn't surprise me if some landowners who would participate in BM as a type 1 or at all, may not because the headache just lasts too long.

There is a trade off between opportunity and access. It is not a question about when, but how much.

 

[BRI]

There was mention of a unit where the bull numbers are really low. The biologist said half the sportsmen wanted it to go to a draw to get to the numbers up and the other half liked their opportunity to hunt close to town. I don't see the value in having so much hunting opportunity if bull numbers are so low. I think emphasis on the resource needs to be made as well.

There was also a point about how connecting landowners with hunters that have a cow tag for a unit worked really well for game damage issues.

That was likely unit 214 outside Anaconda. Based on the low elk numbers and low bull/cow ratio, the Anaconda Sportsman's club made a recommendation to move the unit to a draw. FWP then made that recommendation in their proposals. At the proposal meeting, a large contingent of folks not belonging to the Sportsman's club stood up in opposition and it subsequently was removed.