ODFW Seeking Hunter Comments on Deer/Elk Season Structure

[TayBou]

The Elk population is declining, the best management objectives in the state are 20/100 Bulls/Cows with most at 10/100, and few are reaching those objectives. I've often said ODFW manages with a sustained yield approach, similar to private timber lands. Based on their surveys, Oregon hunters want opportunity and that approach provides it. The problem, as with private timber lands, it isn't really sustainable. You can cut 100 million bf of timber if your forest regenerates that same 100 million but the problem is you cut marketable timber and you're regenerating that 100 million from 6" dbh trees. Similar but different with our Elk herds, we're killing every bull over the M.O.'s and with no effective predator management due to legislation and our Wolf Plan, our calf recruitment can't keep up with the decline. It only takes a few years of minimal recruitment and you can see the effect.

With declining herds and no predator management, they only have a few options; manage the number of people or manage the number of tags. You simply can't manage the resource when you have unlimited OTC hunting in any given unit on any given day. Unfortunately or fortunately depending on a persons take, ODFW has a history of maintaining hunter pressure when going to a controlled hunt from a gen hunt, and that appears to be the case here from the last numbers I've seen. They're issuing controlled hunt tags equal to the number of otc hunters that were in the unit so not much will change.

Have you seen published numbers on the rocky mountain herd declining? Only the last 4 years are easily available, and they look relatively flat. Another report from 2006 looks to have lower population numbers for most units, but generally the same bull/cow ratios. Are you looking at something different, or is this selection of data misleading to the overall trends? I have a request to ODFW for the remaining data since it doesn't look like it's easily available online currently.

2015-2019 reported herd stats: https://www.dfw.state.or.us/resourc...stimates and Herd Composition 2015 - 2019.pdf

2006 (includes 2003-2006 numbers) report: https://www.dfw.state.or.us/resourc...lled_hunts/docs/hunt_statistics/05/03-elk.pdf

 

[FI460]

Oregon BHA will be sitting down with ODFW to discuss the elk proposal tomorrow evening.

Eastern Oregon Archery Elk Regulations - Crowdcast

Register now for Backcountry Hunters & Anglers's event on Crowdcast, scheduled to go live on Wednesday May 19, 2021 at 7:00 pm MDT.

www.crowdcast.io

 

[WapitiBob]

Tay, I'll try and locate what I used.