Podcast on wounding

[Big Fin]

For your listening pleasure. Craig Jourdonnais joined me on this one.

Hunt Talk Radio - On Wounding w/ Craig Jourdonnais - Episode 234 on Stitcher

In this episode (#234) of Leupold's Hunt Talk Radio, Randy is joined by Craig Jourdonnais. Craig is a wildlife biologist, hunting instructor, and researcher who now oversees wildlife studies. This topic covered is wounding, what can be done to lessen the likelihood of bad outcomes, practice and...

www.stitcher.com

 

[fwagner]

Don't be a wanna be tough guy and shoot out to 900+ yards. There that covers most of it...

 

[FREAK]

Was there any discussion on the idea of wounding one means a punched tag in Montana? I know there was another thread where @Big Fin was talking about trying to get a bill pushed through. There was a lot of interesting discussion/opinions on it.

 

[Big Fin]

Was there any discussion on the idea of wounding one means a punched tag in Montana? I know there was another thread where @Big Fin was talking about trying to get a bill pushed through. There was a lot of interesting discussion/opinions on it.

Yup. Talked about it and why I decided against pushing for it this legislative session.

 

[FREAK]

Yup. Talked about it and why I decided against pushing for it this legislative session.

I’ll have to give it a listen. Thank you

 

[232401a]

1. If you want legislative action on wounding, keep posting your wound & continue stories online. Plenty of them on this site and others for a legislator to cite to.

2. If a state charges $2,000-$6,000 and 30+ years of point accumulation for a tag, they shouldn't be surprised that the purchaser of that tag feels inclined to continue hunting after a wound.

 

[Bowhuntrben]

I wonder what the wound ratio is for guys trying to self film their own hunts. I'm particularly thinking where I've seen a lot of it...treestand hunting for whitetails where they can show up pretty quick and close. I've thought it would be fun to start doing this, but I've watched too many hunts on youtube where it seems folks are putting more emphasis on getting the shot on camera than they are on making a good shot (i.e., the deer moves out of screen and they have to adjust their camera). It seems social media and wanting to produce more content does not help with the level of stupidity and thus wounded animals.
My personal experience has shown me that there are enough other factors that I need to watch out for that adding in trying to get it on camera is just adding another unnecessary factor in. I'm not saying I will never try it, but I would accept the fact that most likely I would not be getting anything on video at all...unless circumstances are perfect. I know there are people that can successfully do this and are responsible enough to not take the shot when things don't go according to plan, but I'm also guessing there are plenty of mess-ups by many folks.

 

[OntarioHunter]

I think it would be difficult to enforce a regulation requiring rifle hunters to punch out their tag if they wound and lose an animal. However, I do believe it may be possible to make a reasonably effective regulation for archery hunting and let's be honest we all know that is where the worst offenders lie. Archery tags can be issued with a packet of decals with license number on them. The hunter must stick the decal on the shaft of each arrow he uses for hunting. Yes, the arrows often pass through the wounded animal but sometimes they don't. If a carcass is found with an arrow stuck in it, it would be an easy matter for LE to track down the hunter and ensure he's punched out. Any hunter who draws blood and doesn't immediately find the animal or arrow would be very much persuaded to punch his tag. Better than nothing.

In Africa you draw blood, you pay the trophy fee. Period. Often a farm hand is along to ensure guide and client follow the rule.

 

[RyGuy]

Definitely a good listen. Makes a guy think.

 

[Johnny Bravo]

1. If you want legislative action on wounding, keep posting your wound & continue stories online. Plenty of them on this site and others for a legislator to cite to.

2. If a state charges $2,000-$6,000 and 30+ years of point accumulation for a tag, they shouldn't be surprised that the purchaser of that tag feels inclined to continue hunting after a wound.

Exactly and that is what it's coming to already for the current price This would never be enforced so why even waste time on it. Just more rules no one knows about or much less follows. I hunt archery and in my life I have only lost 2 deer and with all the critter that need to eat, I know they did not go to waste. I get the point, but there are WAY bigger issue to get fixed than a wounded animal punch your tag rule.

 

[wyoelkfan15]

I think the interesting part of the podcast was where Randy and Craig try and quantify the actual percentage of wound loss to the herd. @Big Fin , could you clarify the percentages that the two of you discussed. At one point, Craig mentioned there was up to 50% wounding loss in some places. Is that 50% of all hunted animals in that specific case are lost to hunter caused mortality, without recovery? In my opinion that's way too high of a number to be acceptable and would be supportive of regulations that try and curb that number.

In most places, if I had to guess wound loss is more likely around the 10-20% mark. At what point does a regulation start to actual curb this loss rate? If we could reduce a specific problem area from 50% down to 10%, would that not be successful for game management? Personally, I've lost two animals in two decades of hunting, one was an out of state high price tag, both times I've punched my tag.

 

[mtmuley]

I'd like to know where Craig gets the number of 50% wounding loss. MPG hunts? mtmuley

 

[TheJason]

What I pay for a tag doesn’t dictate my ethos.

 

[Big Fin]

Craig has a lot of different studies. He also has his work on MPG Ranch. The studies vary from the low teens to almost 50%.

Wounding is a hit animal, whether fatal or non-fatal. A few studies have collared animals and can do post-mortem if it was fatal. The percentages of unrecovered vary, as do the percentages of fatal.

Point being, if it is 10% or 30%, is it impacting wildlife management? Yes, it does impact management. Then, to what degree? That's the hard one to determine.

I hope we left it with the understanding that it happens, no matter how hard everyone tries to avoid it. What can we do to minimize it, both pre-shot and post-shot. And what do we do when things go wrong and we don't recover it? Hopefully it gets hunters thinking about it.

 

[mtmuley]

Can we have access to his studies? mtmuley

 

[Gerald Martin]

I would be interested in the number of samples used to determine the 50% ratio.

It seems unusually high based on my personal experience and observations of the experiences of acquaintances.

My personal wounding loss is probably less than 3% with a rifle and perhaps 20% or less with archery.

That includes all hit and unrecovered game. Several of the archery wounds were fairly superficial in location and the animal almost certainly survived and recovered with lasting consequences.

 

[Big Fin]

Can we have access to his studies? mtmuley

You could ask him. I think you know him.

I had a bunch of links to studies in Kentucky, Kansas, Minnesota, Pennsylvania, Virginia, and a few other states that I had researched before the podcast. I had those tabs open during the podcast and I was referring to them. If you go into Google Scholar and type in the topic of hunting-wounding-loss-studies, it should bring up days of reading material.

 

[Addicting]

I am just curious as to what in those conversations with legislators that changed your mind that we didn’t cover in the thread you started.

 

[mtmuley]

I would be interested in the number of samples used to determine the 50% ratio.

I'm wondering if that might be MPG data. Most hunting on the ranch is for cows by many inexperienced and youth hunters. Like Randy said, I'll ask Craig for his data. Can't hurt. mtmuley

 

[Big Fin]

I'll try to post up some of the links I had read as research for the podcast. Some are older. Some on deer. A few on elk.

This is an older one from Idaho on elk https://www.jstor.org/stable/3809273

Abstract​

Habitat condition and hunter density may affect mortality rates of elk (Cervus elaphus), and therefore, the amount of recreational opportunity offered hunters. Thus, we radio-monitored 121 elk in the forested habitats of northcentral Idaho during 1986-91 to determine cause-specific mortality. Sixty-nine deaths recorded during this period included: 43 recovered rifle kills, 8 rifle wounding losses, 4 archery wounding losses, 2 recovered archery kills, 3 poaching kills, and 9 other mortalities. Eighty-six percent of all elk deaths occurred during September and October and were associated with hunting. Annual survival rate of cow elk was 0.886 (SE = 0.094). Annual survival rate of bull elk was 0.600 (SE = 0.063). The probability of mortality during the hunting season was modelled with stepwise logistic regression from habitat and hunter density variables. The probability of mortality increased with road and hunter densities, and was lower in areas with highly broken or dissected terrain. Estimating cause-specific mortality is integral to population management and modelling. Mortality models, along with improved population estimation methods, and habitat monitoring techniques have the potential to predict the effects of habitat change on populations and how this may affect recreational opportunity. Mortality models also may help determine elk vulnerability during the hunting season.

121 elk collared, 69 dead, 43 rifle kills, 2 archery kills, 8 unrecovered rifle deaths, 4 unrecovered archery deaths. 45 recovered elk from hunting and 12 unrecovered dead from hunting. 12/(45+12) = 21% of the collared elk that died from hunting were unrecovered. Did not state how many were hit and survived, as they only counted the dead elk.