The Future of “Big 3” Hunting in Montana.

[BuzzH]

Doing a bit more reading on goats here https://myfwp.mt.gov/getRepositoryFile?objectID=98193

I have a late friend that killed 2 goats in the Rattlesnake near Carter Lake.

I saw goats in the late 90's there, one big billy near where my friend killed his goats and saw 3 off HWY 200 near Wisherd Bridge, looked like all 3 were nannies. I didn't have my spotting scope that day, so can't be sure. They for sure weren't big goats.

Another strange place my Brother saw a goat was the lower reaches of Burnt Fork Creek in the Bitterroot (east side)...an adult billy.

 

[Nameless Range]

Sometimes I wonder how reliable our assessment of historic native ranges and the populations that occupied those places, are. Our path has been quite the thing. I clipped these last night out of an 1895 issue of the Clancy Miner.

 

[Oak]

Sometimes I wonder how reliable our assessment of historic native ranges and the populations that occupied those places, are. Our path has been quite the thing. I clipped these last night out of an 1895 issue of the Clancy Miner.

I have especially thought this about bighorn sheep. I think our habitat suitability modeling for sheep is heavily flawed by our presumptions regarding ruggedness required for escape terrain. When sheep were far more numerous they existed across a much broader variety of habitats than they do today. Those herds which survived the early push by Europeans persisted in the most rugged, remote, and inaccessible areas. That skews our perception of what are necessary components of suitable habitat.

 

[Nameless Range]

I have especially thought this about bighorn sheep. I think our habitat suitability modeling for sheep is heavily flawed by our presumptions regarding ruggedness required for escape terrain. When sheep were far more numerous they existed across a much broader variety of habitats than they do today. Those herds which survived the early push by Europeans persisted in the most rugged, remote, and inaccessible areas. That skews our perception of what are necessary components of suitable habitat.

I am sure there's folks who have studied this, but in the same way that by the time white men made it across the continent, an enormous percentage of Native Americans had succumbed to disease a hundred years prior, I wonder if the same could be said for sheep.

I work with an archeologist who has really sparked my fascination with his thoughts about the how plentiful Bighorns were pre-colonialization, and how they were even herded to their dooms at certain sites.

Today, right now - we argue and call into question the population estimates, and in particular, distribution claims, of animals on the landscape that we can literally count from the air. I don't have a lot of confidence in any claims about populations, and distribution, of animals/herds that've been gone for centuries.

 

[FREAK]

Am I understanding the squared point concept correctly?

So for all you excel junkies my formula for "% Odds of Drawing" = ("Squared Points" * "# of Applicants" * "available tags")/"Total Points in Poll". Never quite understood it, but @Nameless Range nice graphs got me interested in looking at both ends (2008 vs 2022) on Moose in an attempt to understand it better. Really interesting to see such an increase in new hunters and decrease in available tags. Feels like a "once in a lifetime" is becoming "once in multiple generations."

 

[Unlucky]

Cut big 3 tags down to half of what they issue currently. Make it once in a lifetime tag if u draw. With that make it so u can only apply for 1 big game species limited entry, deer elk moose goat sheep pronghorn. Make the fines for poaching life altering.

 

[AlaskaHunter]

any insight into the drops in tags for your moose?

here is a graph of our moose permits that cpw released. what's going on in montana to not be seeing something similar? it can't be wolves right? i don't buy the rhetoric that wolves are going to destroy our elk and moose populations. will they have an effect? i'm sure. but not decimate.

View attachment 275972

One theory up here in Alaska is the "predator pit" where moose populations drop below some critical threshold
due to several bad winters then the population is slow to grow due to wolve predation.
The "predator pit" theory is controversial though. See for example:
Efficacy of Killing Large Carnivores to Enhance Moose Harvests: New Insights from a Long-Term View
(this was published in a "low-impact" scientific journal, likely first rejected from the top-tier scientific journals)

 

[mtnkid85]

I was thinking about this conversation while reading the current FWP proposal to add an additional 12 day archery season on Moose & Goats here in Montana.

Im a archery hunter, if I ever draw one of these tags I'll probably give it a go with my bow.
But, I just don't think we need to be applying an additional 12 days of pressure on these critters, when you consider these declining trends brought up in this thread.

 

[Joseph Peterson]

Here in central Idaho, ungulate populations were struggling with habitat maturing prior to the reintroduction of wolves. In those areas I used to guide multiple moose hunts a year, the seasons are completely closed. Quadruple wammmy it seems.