MT Mule Deer Symposium

[bjtc_brian]

Brian;

Not arguing your point, but I think it needs to go a little deeper than that. If outfitters.....or anyone else for that matter weren't out hunting at all the last two weeks of season it would help immensely. Montana will have a hard time with that though as everything revolves around the almighty dollar. Maybe allowing doe hunts the last two weeks on a limited basis and in certain areas, but shutting off the buck hunting might work. Just a thought.

I don't necessarily disagree with this from the point of "bigger" bucks. Just limiting people from hunting within 500 yards of a road would limit this!!! LOL! If you are going to limit this, why not limit hunting elk during the rut...not quite as popular either.

Better yet, how about limit the number of outfitters. A good start would be taking the current number and getting rid of 50% of them.

I personally don't think you would even have to go that far. I think if you limited outfitters to having to hunt public lands that same as the "public", 50% of them would go out of business due to laziness. I think it is complete and utter BS that someone can lease a 10 acre piece of private to give them miles on miles of driving!

Albeit, I am pretty bitter, even a month later, that someone can completely RUIN 15-20 sqaure miles in less than one season just by driving his damn UTV all over the place! In 4 years prior, we had never seen a hunter get off his butt and walk into where we had found. And we had never not see at least one quality buck in the area, until this year. Funniest thing of all was that the outfitter claimed on his web site that he was all for "managing" the game...TOTAL BS!!!!

 

[Big Shooter]

Outfitters limited to 50%.........................this truly is a monumental day as BuzzH and I finally see eye to eye on something. One thing though.....maybe if we just kept the legal ones (licensed that is), which would probably still cut the numbers by 50%, would be a great start.

 

[bjtc_brian]

By the way, my favorite hunting to do is hunting Muley's in the rut. Although, I think lope's are fast moving up the list. I love the fact you can actually have active hunting ALL day long with the possibility of kill and mature buck no matter what the clock says. My experience is event hunting elk in the rut seems to slow quite a bit during the daytime hours. I understand hunting in the day is still a great and successful strategy, but not quite the same!

 

[Big Shooter]

Brian;

The whole 500 yards from the road thing, even though a little hard to police, I agree would save a lot of deer. Too bad it is not doable. As far as hunting the elk rut, good point, but at least when that is going on the hunters are using archery equipment vs. firearms for the most part. Unfortunately, none of it is probably ever gonna happen.

 

[bjtc_brian]

Unfortunately, none of it is probably ever gonna happen.

Agreed totaly!!!! As I said earlier, I am just real bitter at this point. I don't blame the landowner nor do I blame the outfitter(other than him trying to start SH!T with us). Just sucks!!

 

[1_pointer]

The agenda has a speaker from Deseret Land and Livestock of Utah so maybe some form of Ranching for Wildlife will be presented as the answer? Big bucks... but you will never get a tag unless your wallet is bulging. Sorry but I will always be wary when a symposium is sponsored by MOGA and supported by Safari Club (of Dallas??)

I would be interested in hearing what the person from DL&L has to say. Knowing the place and the personel it could be the benefits of the CWMA type program. However, I would be surprised if its not long on habitat manipulation. The amount of work that ranch has done to better habitat is very impressive. One take home message from alot of the talks about habitat and mule deer from the folks there is that it too often takes quite a while for mule deer to figure "it" out. Elk and pronghorn seem to benefit much faster than mule deer. It would also be good for those in attendance to ask the speaker, especially if it's the ranch biologist, what their take on predators is. I'm betting many would be surprised...

 

[mtmiller]

thinking about it, weather dependent

Well there goes the weather. Currently a blizzard in God's Country. Hoping someone can give a report on the symposium this weekend. thanks much....

 

[jlmatthew]

Better yet, how about limit the number of outfitters. A good start would be taking the current number and getting rid of 50% of them.

Sure would be nice if they would try that experiment in Colorado!

 

[The Hedgehog]

miller or big shooter, are you going to be in town? Bring your skis and beer drinking equipment.

 

[shoots-straight]

Outfitters limited to 50%.........................this truly is a monumental day as BuzzH and I finally see eye to eye on something. One thing though.....maybe if we just kept the legal ones (licensed that is), which would probably still cut the numbers by 50%, would be a great start.

How bad do you think it's going to get if they pass the bill to increase NR tags by 10,000 in wilderness areas?

 

[shoots-straight]

miller or big shooter, are you going to be in town? Bring your skis and beer drinking equipment.

So you got me to thinking.

Is this standard Greenhorn gear?

 

[Big Shooter]

Was there yesterday for meetings and then have to be in Great Falls for the Circuit Finals for the weekend. And by the way......the whole skiing thing would be terribly ugly! Beer drinking on the other hand........I have learned to master over the years. Thanks for the invite though.

 

[Jon Boy]

I think eliminating extra doe tags would be the first place to start to increasing the population.

 

[Big Fin]

So, for those who attended, what did you think? I got emails from some who thought it started out OK and transgressed to nothing more than the "Utah-ization" of Montana hunting.

If you attended, I am sure some here would be interested of your opinion as to how it went.

 

[What Map]

I don’t have my notes with me so I’ll be reporting general impressions with little or no detail. Attendance was good considering the road conditions and there were ten or so reps from resident MT hunters’ groups. The other 50-70 people were MOGA members.
All the speakers from Utah supported its private property model because it provides “incentives” to land owners to improve habitat. Their presentations were professional and were not too preachy.
MT FW&P’s had two presentations. The first was survey results that clearly showed Montana residents want long seasons through the rut. The second analyzed the restricted draw districts from the general license districts and showed the restricted ones have larger bucks. Of note the Department’s official position is predators have virtually no impact on mule deer herds. They claim it is all habitat. There were some in the audience who pushed back on the notion.
To “balance” the presentations, there were two very good speakers from the B&C Club and the MT Fish and Game Association (?). They presented well the seven tenants of the North American Model of Wildlife Conservation and their implications on modern management programs.
During the Q&A, one of the Utah reps admitted that the Utah model was at odds with the NAMWC.
The biggest theme during the Q&A was that land owners needed more incentives to do good. We were forbidden to make “statements” and could only ask questions of the presenters. So the resident hunter reps bit their tongues for the most part. But I wrote down a list of current incentives for land owners. They are: charge for trespass, sell a conservation easement, enroll in CRP, enroll in Block Mgmt, enroll in other stewardship programs, receive land owner preference tags, and significantly increase the value of your land to sell to the next buyer.
I would have liked to see a discussion about improving and expanding these current programs that are acceptable to resident hunters. Giving more ownership and management to land owners will be a very unpopular program in MT, IMO.
I think it was good for MOGA to put on this seminar. It brought out the same ol’ characters from the various organizations. We were civil to each other and talked to each other during the breaks. I think that was a good thing.

 

[Straight Arrow]

I will attempt a brief recap as viewed from my admittedly narrow perspective.
Mule Deer Foundation president, Miles Moretti, presented an interesting status report on mule deer populations in the west and emphasized the need to preserve and gain habitat.
Montana FWP's Quentin Kujala presented his very professional analysis of a hunter survey of the effects of various mule deer hunting season restrictions. It was interesting, even somewhat counter-intuitive, but not conclusive. I'm sure more analysis will follow.
Quentin also stood in for a speaker unable to be there and spoke very well on factors affecting mule deer. He emphasized that habitat and weather affected mule deer populations the most, with predators also a factor, and hunting even less. Naturally, there were those who challenged the ranking of the predator factor, but the presentation did attempt to qualify the effects by generalizing and acknowledging the differences among various hunting districts and conditions. (ie: habitat conditions vs high wolf / lion populations) resulted in different ranking of factors.
Ken Clegg, wildlife management biologist and consultant from Utah, presented a commercial analysis of antler scores versus net profit, focused on calculating the per-animal value of wildlife, and how to maximize net profit gained from wildlife on a specific piece of ground. HIs presentation was certainly interesting and well-structured, however, for a traditional, mostly public lands hunter like me, it was disconcerting. My emotional personal reaction was to view this as the "kings wildlife bookkeeper advising on how to financially capitalize on the wildlife of the realm." But to be more objective, it was a great presentation for a rancher who is interesting in sustaining healthy wildlife populations with mostly high quality trophy value, while maximizing revenue.
Utah Deseret Ranches wildlife manager, Rick Danvir, gave an excellent presentation on the value of balancing domestic traditional agricultural high producing habitat with wildlife habitat plants, feeds, and forage. He showed the anaysis of averaging and balancing habitats comprised of grasses, brushes, trees, and other plants for food, security, and various animal requirements. His models showed how domestic animals and wildlife can both be reasonably accommodated. I appreciated that he also spoke to his personal view of accommodating non-game wildlife and predators, as well as money-making wildlife. Mr. Danvir did present a favorable case for Utah's Cooperative Wildlife Management Units (CWMU), however, it generated many questions and a need to learn more for me.
Boone & Crockett representatives did an excellent job of explaining and advocating for the North American Model of Wildlife Conservation and, importantly, how it perfectly fits for the groups in the room. (ie: outfitters, landowners, sportsmen, conservationists, wildlife professionals, etal.)
The speakers then formed a panel and addressed questions and comments. Most importantly, that discussion emphasized the need to collaborate and to fix the rift among outfitters, landowners, sportsmen, and FWP.
'Hope this was clear enough. I enjoyed the symposium and departed with much information, much to ponder, and a number of questions and ideas. I welcome others who also attended to elaborate on what they heard and on their perceptions. My comments fall far short of complete description.

 

[Lawnboy]

MT FW&P’s had two presentations. The first was survey results that clearly showed Montana residents want long seasons through the rut. The second analyzed the restricted draw districts from the general license districts and showed the restricted ones have larger bucks. .

So because Joe Public wants longer seasons through the rut we better allow it even if it might hurt the recovering population? This has been a theme for way too long with the department. Why can't they be biologists and make decisions based on biology. This whole pandering to the public and the legislature is non sense and is killing many of the recovery efforts. I realize the legislature strong arms thems without much they can do about it.

Then the second part about having larger animals in restricted districts seems to be a no brainer. While I don't support solely managing for trophies in all districts it is nice to have the option to play the trophy draw game if you'd like in a handfull of units. The noticed improvement on quality in the restricted units should be evidence that they can help herds recover in all units by eliminating some tags (does). Not sure why this isn't discussed more as an option.

 

[Eric Albus]

Well, for those of you who would like my 2 cents on the subject....as an outfitter interested in the biology and management of mule deer I was disappointed in the symposium....it lacked an real managment strategy, and failed to look at mule deer trends, also I was hoping for a longer Q&A period....Quentin gave the usual FWP by-line...."survey says answers"...IMO you can get a survey to be answered any way you want by framing the questions properly...and stack the outcome...that said, Quentin did say in a 'round about way that Montana's mule deer are managed by a popularity contest...so no matter what shape the resource is in FWP is going to manage the mule deer by popular opinion...even if that is obtained by a loaded survey and goes against sound biological managment of the resource.... The rest of the show was well summed up in the previous posts....George Bettis hit the nail on his head w/ closing remarks...IF 10-20 of us in the room would sit down and discuss the managment of the resource in an adult manner we could come up w/ a viable solution....We all need to come together and pressure FWP to manage elk/mule deer in general season areas with science.... one thing to ponder...ever notice how the Dept. keeps the mantra up of "5 week, traditional Thanksgiving hunt, survey says mentality"....and how this coordinates w. maximum license sales?????? maybe it is just coincidence?

 

[ingomar]

My friend, a wildlife biologist not with FWP, and myself were at the symposium and here are our thoughts:

Mule Deer Management Symposium: “Managing Landscapes and Improving Quality”.

More accurately described as: “Methods to Maximize Profits from the Public’s Mule Deer” or “Ranching for Wildlife”

If you attended the Mule Deer Symposium last Saturday, Dec. 12th in Bozeman sponsored by Montana Outfitters and Guides Association (MOGA), the Boone and Crocket Club, the Mule Deer Foundation, and the FWP Foundation expecting to learn more about what was going on with Mule Deer populations that was not generally the case.

Most of the discussion centered on how best to privatize and commercialize wildlife and manage it like livestock. Curiously I seldom (once, maybe twice) heard the term Ranching for Wildlife. They may have chosen “Integrated Management” or possibly “Integrated Ranching” to distance themselves from the bad reputation RFW has earned.

You were sorely mistaken if you thought you might hear from experts about mule deer health, factors driving populations, winter range conditions, disease or even predation. Wolves barely even got a mention, it was all about profit.

Discussions about “culling” management bucks,” running wildlife” as in a rancher running cattle, maximizing profit by managing for a particular B&C score, saving “breeder” bucks”, selling bucks by the inch, and incentivizing landowners dominated the Symposium.

The first 3 presentations were informative. Miles Moretti, President/CEO of the Mule Deer Foundation gave a “Status Report on Mule Deer in the American West” heavy on Utah as that is where he is from. Miles did a good job of defining the causes of mule deer declines over the past 30 years. He also offered his thoughts on what needed to be done to bring mule deer populations back to higher levels. His primary focus was in habitat restoration to replace some of the less desirable habitat with more traditional mule deer habitat. While he said that loss of habitat was the biggest factor causing mule deer declines, it seemed that the audience firmly believe predation is the primary cause.

Quentin Kujala reported on the results of the 2011 FWP Mule Deer Hunter Preference Survey comparing resident and non-resident responses showing strong support by both residents and non-residents for the current system of managing mule deer in Montana emphasizing opportunity. Both residents and non-residents ranked trophy hunting at or near the bottom of a list of 10 reasons to hunt.

Link to News release on resident portion of study. You may have to cut and paste.
http://fwp.mt.gov/news/newsReleases/headlines/nr_3987.html

Quentin filled in for Paul Lukacs a prof at U of M describing “The effects of Mule Deer Buck Regulations on Mule Deer Populations and Harvest” which described the effects of the Montana’s 3 restrictive mule deer season types; limited permits, unlimited licenses restricted to one unit and shortened seasons. His presentation included a slide comparing factors affecting mule deer populations. Habitat quality was by far the most important. During Q&A he pointed out in some situations predation can have an impact.

Once the first 3 presentations were done however the main focus shifted to maximizing profit from wildlife especially mule deer. Rick Danvir from Deseret Ranches in Utah discussed “Landowners Role in Managing Wildlife with an Integrated Ranching and Farming business” He did show a slide emphasizing that wildlife belonged to the public and gave a good description of a holistic approach to land management indentifying factors contributing to productivity of the land. He is a big advocate of rest rotation grazing for cattle which is good for wildlife. He also emphasized the need for incentives for landowners in the form of licenses to sell in order to make managing for wildlife worthwhile. This marked the first gradual introduction to Ranching for Wildlife.

The next presenter, Ken Clegg, “The Impact of Mule Deer Harvest Rates on B&C scores” abandoned any pretense of doing anything but selling wildlife literally by the “inch” and how to maximize the profit from selling mule deer bucks. He manages a number of ranches in several Rocky Mountain states totaling a couple million acres including a couple ranches in Montana. He suggested landowners should keep track of the B&C score of every buck shot on their property to gauge how the management of the ranch was doing. He kept these records for many years on all the ranches he manages and this presentation was a result of what he learned from thousands of bucks.

Using a hypothetical population of 1,000 mule deer he showed how many bucks of various scores you could “harvest” to maintain a particular B&C score in your herd. This included a chart showing where in his words the “sweet spot” was in terms of profit. On the left side was the B&C score. Columns included the number of bucks of various scores you could sell to maintain each level of B&C score. On the right was the total profit you would realize by managing for each score. The Sweet Spot” was harvesting 3 % of the bucks to manage for an average score of 180. If you chose to sell 10% of the bucks, your average score would only be 118 and you couldn’t charge nearly as much “per buck” not per hunter or per hunt but per buck in his words.

Another chart showed what bucks with various scores are worth. He also encouraged “culling” management bucks and recommended letting some of the largest “breeder” bucks live. He described how they sell bucks by the inch in Texas and used terms like “market the biggest” and harvest smaller bucks. One comment sounded like you should shoot a few monsters for advertising and only let most clients shoot smaller though nice bucks. There was absolutely no mention of quality hunting experience, ethics, hunter recruitment or retention, etc. Everything in his presentation was based on maximizing profit. He repeated the argument that landowners needed the “profit incentive” in order to manage for wildlife.

The closing presentation was supposed to be about a “Cooperative System of Integrated Management and the North American Model of Wildlife Management” by Paul Krausman, the Boone and Crockett Professor of Wildlife Conservation but he had to cancel. Representatives from the FWP Foundation and Boone and Crockett club replaced him for the symposium wrap up. The FWP foundation member discussed how his home state of Washington has gone to more limited entry type hunts and bragged about the size of the bull elk killed on his family’s ranch now even though his name may never be drawn. His message was the need to “balance opportunity” among landowners and outfitters. He seemed to catch himself and added public hunters. It may not have been intentional but it was certainly obvious.

He then introduced the Director of Marketing for Boone & Crockett who explained a version of the North American Model (NAM) that seems to justify selling wildlife by the inch, not by the pound. He explained the NAM resulted from resentment of the European model where wildlife belonged to as he put it, “nobility and the wealthy”. He referred to Robin Hood and the kings deer and how there was no incentive for the public to protect the “king’s deer”. Most in the room missed or ignored the irony of reserving the public’s wildlife for the wealthy through schemes like Ranching for Wildlife.

Regarding the prohibition of selling wildlife he stated “some misguided people claim” what we are talking about is selling wildlife but they (we) are wrong; “the prohibition only applies to selling meat”. Not sure 20 million hideless buffalo or tens of thousands of elk shot so their teeth could grace watch fobs would believe this ingenuous effort to justify selling public wildlife by the inch. Most people in the room, mainly outfitters and the guy in the SFW shirt were nodding up and down while the few sportsmen and FWP employees either looked shocked or were shaking their heads sideways.

Conspicuous by its absence was any attempt to address the Mule Deer satisfaction survey and the wishes of a large majority of both resident and non-resident hunters to manage mule deer for opportunity and how this related to the Ranching for Wildlife model so heavily promoted.

I did learn a whole new appreciation for the Ranching for Wildlife advocates. They are slick. All this time I thought it meant giving ranchers licenses to sell in return for a minimal bit public access. Now I realize it is a smokescreen for privatizing and commercializing public wildlife for profit. They really are managing wildlife just like livestock. I was just waiting to hear what color ear tags they preferred.

A few of the Q&A for all presenters afterwards.

Another justification for providing tags for landowners was that many ranches are raising wildlife which leave the ranch and are available to the public on nearby public land.

Someone mentioned the Utah CWMU or Cooperative Wildlife Management Units where landowners are given buck and bull tags to sell while leaving a smaller percentage (10% to 40%) of mostly cow and doe tags for the public. 110 ranches covering 2 million acres participate. Apparently signing up can give participating ranches control of significant chunks of public land thus evicting long time public land hunters.

An online search shows that initially, the public got the majority of the CWMU tags but not so surprisingly after a few years, the landowners “needed more incentives” and ended up with 60% to 90% of the tags. Oh yeah, they bragged about how 10 to 15 % of the public’s tags were for bulls and bucks. I think a 1 in 75 chance of drawing was mentioned rather proudly like the public should be grateful. This was not mentioned at the Symposium. Montana sportsmen would do well to heed this example of how Ranching for Wildlife and Sportsmen for Fish and Wildlife operate in Utah.

There was a question about whether increasing elk populations were outcompeting mule deer.

The best question of the day came from a sportsman who wondered why this sounded more like animal husbandry than wildlife management. Give them credit; there were a few “sheepish” attempts to address his question.

 

[Rimrock]

Appreciate the detailed reports from this symposium, and while my official policy is that I mainly stick to non-controversial things like buffalo, can't resist chiming in here...
We live right off the west slope of the Bridgers, which used to be primo mule deer country. My Dad wasn't a big game hunter, and back in our wild game processing days I didn't have time for much in the way of hunting expeditions, so more or less learned to hunt here in the "back yard". This was in the early 80's, when the muley situation in the Bridgers had already started to decline. Not as many trophy class bucks, although numbers were still good, and I usually filled two tags every year. So yes, maybe it's partly my fault! After I came to my senses and got out of the game processing business (skinning buffalo paid better than anything else I've done except for farming in the 70's!) we expanded our "territory" and I eventually got perhaps the trophy of a lifetime, a 205 non-typical out in eastern MT, in country that burned to a crisp this year.
Back in the Bridgers, though, FWP had gone to permit only for bucks. We used to put in for those, and a few years back my son drew and got the best buck in the neighborhood, right here on the farm! Which I should add is partly State land, open to all. Long as you walk...
Despite going to more restrictive regulations, mule deer populations continue to plummet. Precipitously! Two summers ago I took a hike up to one of my old camps, up near the Cottonwood/Bostwick divide. I was somewhat astounded that I used to take packstrings of horses through there, as the trail basically doesn't exist anymore! Clearly, mule deer numbers continue to plummet, in spite of stricter regulations.
I glass the back yard on a daily basis, and only rarely see muleys on the mountain anymore. The "survivors" are mostly down here on the flats, seems to me.
At least I don't think there's necessarily a simple answer. Competition from elk? Maybe, there used to be almost no elk here back then. Habitat? Nothing has changed there, in my view. Predation? While we hear occasional reports, I have yet to cut a wolf track in the Bridgers. And, I've only seen two lions in what... three plus decades now? And of course bears are invisible to me, so maybe lions are also, and I have cut a few tracks, but...
So it appears to me at least that there's no simple answer. Reinforces my opinion that wildlife "management" can be an oxymoron, although if I had to pick a significant factor, I still think it probably starts with an L.