- Joined
- Mar 11, 2001
- Messages
- 70,011
- Reaction score
- 1,007
Elk season opens
Overpopulation leads to high hopes for a plentiful hunt
By Charlie Meyers, Denver Post Outdoor Editor
October 09, 2002
With one eye on the weather map and the other on a ouija board, Colorado elk hunters will venture out Saturday with high hopes of the best hunt in history.
A few optimistic souls even can hope to collect three animals in what amounts to a fire sale on elk that severely overpopulate their range over much of the state.
But before they achieve this uncommon goal, hunters must deal with a daunting list of variables that begins with the key word of elk hunting: location, location, location.
Current forecasts call for snow in the Colorado high country Saturday and Sunday, with clearing into the following week. The amount of snow will dictate the success of this elk-only first of four season splits, one devoted completely to hunters with licenses that specify the gender of the animal and the precise hunt unit in which it may be taken. Three later seasons offer the opportunity to hunt bull elk at most locations on the Western Slope, along with specified areas in eastern Colorado.
In a year marked by protracted drought finally broken by ample September moisture, hunters find themselves caught up in a guessing game that might last throughout the hunt.
Will animals strapped for desirable forage remain at relatively high elevation? Or will they move quickly downslope, many of them out of reach on private land?
"The best advice I can give is to stay mobile, both in planning and physical ability to move," said John Ellenberger, state big game manager with the Colorado Division of Wildlife. "There's no telling where the animals will be, but the safe bet will be to look farther downslope than usual."
Ellenberger said if this question were posed in August, his answer most assuredly would have been that most of the larger elk herds already would have migrated down toward winter range-any place that contained reasonable forage.
"But the recent rain and snow has changed things considerably," he said. "The high country now has water to drink and better vegetation. A lot of plants have greened up after being parched all summer."
Ellenberger, who has spent decades puzzling the patterns of big game animals, knows this pattern won't last.
"We got a good late response with the forage, but too little and too late," he said. "Places such as Middle Park and the country around Meeker, Gunnison and Creede are freezing at night. The growth has stopped and vegetation soon will turn dry and brittle."
The biologist met last Friday with game managers from various parts of the state and came away with a mixed bag of projections. Animals in the northwest around Steamboat Springs and Craig seem to have moved down on green agricultural lands. Around Durango, recent moisture has kept the herds relatively high.
But in those quiet moments when Ellenberger listens to the dialogue between heart and head, he portends a scenario contrary to the agency's goal of the record harvest essential to trimming a runaway population.
"My gut feeling tells me that even though we've got moisture and some vegetation recovery, hunting pressure will cause elk to move downhill much quicker than in previous years," he said. "They'll go to places with the best forage and away from hunting pressure, and that generally translates to private land."
Should this journey take most of the elk all the way down to private property, the result could be both a disappointment and disaster to an agency that hopes to exceed the 60,000 harvest of two years ago. A combination of poor hunting conditions and the disaffection of nonresidents who bridled at an 80 percent increase in license fees caused the elk kill to shrink to 40,000.
DOW offered a record 198,000 specified elk tags-mostly for antlerless animals-and later tacked on another 14,000 antlerless tags to offset forage concerns. At the same time, nonresidents began drifting back, in part from a rollback in cow elk licenses to $250 and the corresponding opportunity to take both a bull and a cow, or two, on the same hunt.
"If we get above 60,000, it'll be a good year. Below 50,000, and we have a big problem," said Rick Kahn, state big game supervisor.
"Some believe that a 5,000 difference in harvest doesn't make much of an impact. But in an aggregate population, 80 percent are cows that are added to the breeding mix. We end up with a lot more animals."
Kahn worries that the sedges upon which elk feed while seeking refuge in dark timber at higher elevation might not have grown properly.
"If that's not available, then they'll go to lower elevation rather quickly," he said.
Kahn is encouraged that the early downward migration game managers feared hasn't materialized as yet.
"But we really won't know exactly what the pattern might be until lots of hunters report back."
Ellenberger remains optimistic about prospects thus far.
"We're set up strategy-wise to harvest a lot of elk, but we need the weather to cooperate if we're to get it."
If hunters and game managers have learned anything in a year marked by drought and fire, it's that you never know about the weather.
Overpopulation leads to high hopes for a plentiful hunt
By Charlie Meyers, Denver Post Outdoor Editor
October 09, 2002
With one eye on the weather map and the other on a ouija board, Colorado elk hunters will venture out Saturday with high hopes of the best hunt in history.
A few optimistic souls even can hope to collect three animals in what amounts to a fire sale on elk that severely overpopulate their range over much of the state.
But before they achieve this uncommon goal, hunters must deal with a daunting list of variables that begins with the key word of elk hunting: location, location, location.
Current forecasts call for snow in the Colorado high country Saturday and Sunday, with clearing into the following week. The amount of snow will dictate the success of this elk-only first of four season splits, one devoted completely to hunters with licenses that specify the gender of the animal and the precise hunt unit in which it may be taken. Three later seasons offer the opportunity to hunt bull elk at most locations on the Western Slope, along with specified areas in eastern Colorado.
In a year marked by protracted drought finally broken by ample September moisture, hunters find themselves caught up in a guessing game that might last throughout the hunt.
Will animals strapped for desirable forage remain at relatively high elevation? Or will they move quickly downslope, many of them out of reach on private land?
"The best advice I can give is to stay mobile, both in planning and physical ability to move," said John Ellenberger, state big game manager with the Colorado Division of Wildlife. "There's no telling where the animals will be, but the safe bet will be to look farther downslope than usual."
Ellenberger said if this question were posed in August, his answer most assuredly would have been that most of the larger elk herds already would have migrated down toward winter range-any place that contained reasonable forage.
"But the recent rain and snow has changed things considerably," he said. "The high country now has water to drink and better vegetation. A lot of plants have greened up after being parched all summer."
Ellenberger, who has spent decades puzzling the patterns of big game animals, knows this pattern won't last.
"We got a good late response with the forage, but too little and too late," he said. "Places such as Middle Park and the country around Meeker, Gunnison and Creede are freezing at night. The growth has stopped and vegetation soon will turn dry and brittle."
The biologist met last Friday with game managers from various parts of the state and came away with a mixed bag of projections. Animals in the northwest around Steamboat Springs and Craig seem to have moved down on green agricultural lands. Around Durango, recent moisture has kept the herds relatively high.
But in those quiet moments when Ellenberger listens to the dialogue between heart and head, he portends a scenario contrary to the agency's goal of the record harvest essential to trimming a runaway population.
"My gut feeling tells me that even though we've got moisture and some vegetation recovery, hunting pressure will cause elk to move downhill much quicker than in previous years," he said. "They'll go to places with the best forage and away from hunting pressure, and that generally translates to private land."
Should this journey take most of the elk all the way down to private property, the result could be both a disappointment and disaster to an agency that hopes to exceed the 60,000 harvest of two years ago. A combination of poor hunting conditions and the disaffection of nonresidents who bridled at an 80 percent increase in license fees caused the elk kill to shrink to 40,000.
DOW offered a record 198,000 specified elk tags-mostly for antlerless animals-and later tacked on another 14,000 antlerless tags to offset forage concerns. At the same time, nonresidents began drifting back, in part from a rollback in cow elk licenses to $250 and the corresponding opportunity to take both a bull and a cow, or two, on the same hunt.
"If we get above 60,000, it'll be a good year. Below 50,000, and we have a big problem," said Rick Kahn, state big game supervisor.
"Some believe that a 5,000 difference in harvest doesn't make much of an impact. But in an aggregate population, 80 percent are cows that are added to the breeding mix. We end up with a lot more animals."
Kahn worries that the sedges upon which elk feed while seeking refuge in dark timber at higher elevation might not have grown properly.
"If that's not available, then they'll go to lower elevation rather quickly," he said.
Kahn is encouraged that the early downward migration game managers feared hasn't materialized as yet.
"But we really won't know exactly what the pattern might be until lots of hunters report back."
Ellenberger remains optimistic about prospects thus far.
"We're set up strategy-wise to harvest a lot of elk, but we need the weather to cooperate if we're to get it."
If hunters and game managers have learned anything in a year marked by drought and fire, it's that you never know about the weather.
