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Cougars chewing at economy
Fewer elk and fewer state-issued game tags have caused hunting season spending to shrink in northeast Oregon
10/26/03
RICHARD COCKLE, Oregonian
JOSEPH -- Cougars have killed so many Rocky Mountain elk in Wallowa County that only 360 tags for antlerless elk are being offered to hunters this year, down from 4,140 just eight years ago.
Because hunting is big business in northeast Oregon, the economic impact quickly trickles down to the county's 7,140 residents. The sharp decline also could signal bad news for people beyond Wallowa County.
State Fish and Wildlife Department biologists say heavy cougar predation of elk calves will continue and is likely to have a similar effect in Union, Baker, Umatilla and Grant counties.
During elk season, hunters used to overwhelm the cafes, gas stations and grocery stores of Wallowa County, said 73-year-old Ken Spidell of Lostine. People joked that a traffic signal had to change in Portland before you could make a left turn in Enterprise.
"Now you can't tell hunting season is here," said Rob Lamb, 55, a Joseph businessman and flyfishing outfitter who has lived in the county 25 years.
The county's 19 outfitter and guide operations have been especially hard hit.
A decade ago, 30 to 40 clients of the Eagle Cap Wilderness Pack Station at Wallowa Lake paid $1,000 each for a deluxe, five-day December antlerless elk hunt into Hells Canyon of the Snake River, said Marc McDowell, 30, a partner in the family-owned business.
The annual hunts ended six years ago, and the loss "took a big chunk of our income," said McDowell's mother, Marlene.
The dropoff in the number of elk-hunting tags also cost the McDowells a lucrative hunt they guided along the Minam River. And their U.S. Forest Service permit to guide hunters into Hells Canyon, which they valued at $50,000, is now worthless, at least for the time being, they said.
In tiny Imnaha, 30 miles east of Joseph, Dave Tanzey operates the rustic Imnaha Store and Tavern, built about 1908. Tanzey figures his business is down by 50 percent in recent years.
Elk season "used to be the thing that got me through the winters," he said. "The (state) game commission is raising predators instead of game animals."
The drop in the number of bull elk tags issued for Wallowa County has paralleled the decline in anterless elk tags over the past eight years, falling from 7,030 to 4,420 this year. The first rifle season for Rocky Mountain bull elk opens Wednesday and runs through Nov. 2, followed by a second season Nov. 8-16.
The loss of revenue from elk hunters comes at a bad time for Wallowa County, which has seen sawmill shutdowns, U.S. Forest Service layoffs, deep staff reductions at local schools and hard times for cattle and hay producers.
Last year, unemployment averaged 9.7 percent, compared with a statewide rate of 7.5 percent, said Jason Yohannan, a state labor economist in La Grande.
Lamb, a former president of the Joseph Economic Improvement District, said actual dollar loss resulting from fewer hunters in the county is unknown, because no one monitors such statistics. "We can't even get figures on tourists."
During the late 1970s, so many elk roamed Wallowa County that ranchers periodically took then-Gov. Vic Atiyeh around by helicopter to inspect damage to their haystacks, stock fences and grain fields. But that was before the explosion in Oregon's cougar population.
Cougar populations had fallen nearly to extinction in 1960, but 3,000 to 5,000 now roam the state, said Bruce Johnson, an Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife researcher in La Grande.
The big cats already were making a comeback when statewide ballot initiatives in 1994 and 1995 banned the use of hounds to hunt cougars and bears. So many cougars now stalk Oregon's forests that hunters killed 229 without hounds last year. That's more than the 187 taken with hounds in 1992, the largest number before hunting with dogs was abolished, according to Fish and Wildlife Department figures.
A typical adult male cougar can weigh 160 pounds, while females average about 100 pounds, Johnson said. A mature cougar probably kills a deer or elk every seven days, and cougar numbers are thought to be growing by 4 percent a year, he said.
Thousands of elk still wander Oregon's remote mountains and forests outside Wallowa County, but their numbers are down since 1997, the peak population year for Rocky Mountain and Roosevelt elk, said ODFW biologist George Keister of Baker City.
Rocky Mountain elk numbered 62,905 in 2001, the last year for which a count is available, compared with 66,150 in 1997, he said. On the state's west side, Roosevelt elk were slightly more numerous in 2001, at 63,370, compared with 64,650 in 1997, he said.
The number of elk killed by hunters has been comparatively stable, while the number of hunters has risen steadily.
In 1964, 41,000 Oregon hunters killed 12,465 elk statewide, said Joel Hurtado of the ODFW in Salem. By 1990, hunter numbers climbed to 66,121, and they killed 13,308 elk. In 2000, 75,181 hunters killed 13,228 elk, he said.
Eight years ago, elk herds exceeded wildlife biologists' management objectives in parts of Wallowa County. But by last winter, only about 1,500 elk roamed the Wenaha Game Management Unit, well below management objectives and down dramatically from the more than 4,000 elk there in the late 1970s.
Johnson took over a five-year, $3.8 million research project last year that aims to determine whether cougars control elk populations or whether habitat changes play a bigger role in elk calf survival. It's still too early in the study to determine, he said.
Habitat change "is a nice theory, but there is no evidence of it," said Keister, who thinks the available data point to cougars. "We have no evidence that indicates anything else."
Vic Coggins, an ODFW biologist in Enterprise, agreed. Wallowa County's elk calf survival rate fell to a low of 18 per 100 cow elk in 2000, Coggins said. But it climbed to 26 calves per 100 cow elk this year, after hunters and biologists on damage-control operations killed 39 cougars, he said.
Keister suspects that predators and prey ultimately will come into balance. But that balance might mean more cougars than most people want, he said.
"We are very concerned; people should understand that," Keister said. "Human safety and livestock, that is our top concern."
When ODFW biologists go into the field now, Johnson said, they usually are armed with bear repellent, which also drives off cougars.
A few years ago, a department employee was forced to kill an attacking cougar in self-defense with a firearm, said ODFW biologist Pat Matthews of Enterprise.
"Those things didn't happen 20 years ago," Keister said. "For people who have been around here 20 or 30 years, it's real obvious things have changed."
Cow-calf ratios also are declining in the Catherine Creek, Starkey, Heppner, Mount Emily, Murderers Creek and Desolation game management units south and west of Wallowa County, ODFW officials said, and hunting ultimately could be cut back in those areas as well.
But the changes have been good for Wallowa Outdoors, an Enterprise business that specializes in archery and fishing equipment. Co-owner Heidi Wilson said more people are archery hunting for elk and deer because general archery season hunters don't have to compete for scarce tags.
The Wilsons also sell a lot of predator calls. Retailing for $13 to $30, the calls are designed to replicate distress noises made by rabbits, fawns and other small prey, she said. "We sure sell a lot of predator calls for people who want to hunt cougars and bears." Richard Cockle: 541-963-8890; rcockle@ucinet.com
Fewer elk and fewer state-issued game tags have caused hunting season spending to shrink in northeast Oregon
10/26/03
RICHARD COCKLE, Oregonian
JOSEPH -- Cougars have killed so many Rocky Mountain elk in Wallowa County that only 360 tags for antlerless elk are being offered to hunters this year, down from 4,140 just eight years ago.
Because hunting is big business in northeast Oregon, the economic impact quickly trickles down to the county's 7,140 residents. The sharp decline also could signal bad news for people beyond Wallowa County.
State Fish and Wildlife Department biologists say heavy cougar predation of elk calves will continue and is likely to have a similar effect in Union, Baker, Umatilla and Grant counties.
During elk season, hunters used to overwhelm the cafes, gas stations and grocery stores of Wallowa County, said 73-year-old Ken Spidell of Lostine. People joked that a traffic signal had to change in Portland before you could make a left turn in Enterprise.
"Now you can't tell hunting season is here," said Rob Lamb, 55, a Joseph businessman and flyfishing outfitter who has lived in the county 25 years.
The county's 19 outfitter and guide operations have been especially hard hit.
A decade ago, 30 to 40 clients of the Eagle Cap Wilderness Pack Station at Wallowa Lake paid $1,000 each for a deluxe, five-day December antlerless elk hunt into Hells Canyon of the Snake River, said Marc McDowell, 30, a partner in the family-owned business.
The annual hunts ended six years ago, and the loss "took a big chunk of our income," said McDowell's mother, Marlene.
The dropoff in the number of elk-hunting tags also cost the McDowells a lucrative hunt they guided along the Minam River. And their U.S. Forest Service permit to guide hunters into Hells Canyon, which they valued at $50,000, is now worthless, at least for the time being, they said.
In tiny Imnaha, 30 miles east of Joseph, Dave Tanzey operates the rustic Imnaha Store and Tavern, built about 1908. Tanzey figures his business is down by 50 percent in recent years.
Elk season "used to be the thing that got me through the winters," he said. "The (state) game commission is raising predators instead of game animals."
The drop in the number of bull elk tags issued for Wallowa County has paralleled the decline in anterless elk tags over the past eight years, falling from 7,030 to 4,420 this year. The first rifle season for Rocky Mountain bull elk opens Wednesday and runs through Nov. 2, followed by a second season Nov. 8-16.
The loss of revenue from elk hunters comes at a bad time for Wallowa County, which has seen sawmill shutdowns, U.S. Forest Service layoffs, deep staff reductions at local schools and hard times for cattle and hay producers.
Last year, unemployment averaged 9.7 percent, compared with a statewide rate of 7.5 percent, said Jason Yohannan, a state labor economist in La Grande.
Lamb, a former president of the Joseph Economic Improvement District, said actual dollar loss resulting from fewer hunters in the county is unknown, because no one monitors such statistics. "We can't even get figures on tourists."
During the late 1970s, so many elk roamed Wallowa County that ranchers periodically took then-Gov. Vic Atiyeh around by helicopter to inspect damage to their haystacks, stock fences and grain fields. But that was before the explosion in Oregon's cougar population.
Cougar populations had fallen nearly to extinction in 1960, but 3,000 to 5,000 now roam the state, said Bruce Johnson, an Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife researcher in La Grande.
The big cats already were making a comeback when statewide ballot initiatives in 1994 and 1995 banned the use of hounds to hunt cougars and bears. So many cougars now stalk Oregon's forests that hunters killed 229 without hounds last year. That's more than the 187 taken with hounds in 1992, the largest number before hunting with dogs was abolished, according to Fish and Wildlife Department figures.
A typical adult male cougar can weigh 160 pounds, while females average about 100 pounds, Johnson said. A mature cougar probably kills a deer or elk every seven days, and cougar numbers are thought to be growing by 4 percent a year, he said.
Thousands of elk still wander Oregon's remote mountains and forests outside Wallowa County, but their numbers are down since 1997, the peak population year for Rocky Mountain and Roosevelt elk, said ODFW biologist George Keister of Baker City.
Rocky Mountain elk numbered 62,905 in 2001, the last year for which a count is available, compared with 66,150 in 1997, he said. On the state's west side, Roosevelt elk were slightly more numerous in 2001, at 63,370, compared with 64,650 in 1997, he said.
The number of elk killed by hunters has been comparatively stable, while the number of hunters has risen steadily.
In 1964, 41,000 Oregon hunters killed 12,465 elk statewide, said Joel Hurtado of the ODFW in Salem. By 1990, hunter numbers climbed to 66,121, and they killed 13,308 elk. In 2000, 75,181 hunters killed 13,228 elk, he said.
Eight years ago, elk herds exceeded wildlife biologists' management objectives in parts of Wallowa County. But by last winter, only about 1,500 elk roamed the Wenaha Game Management Unit, well below management objectives and down dramatically from the more than 4,000 elk there in the late 1970s.
Johnson took over a five-year, $3.8 million research project last year that aims to determine whether cougars control elk populations or whether habitat changes play a bigger role in elk calf survival. It's still too early in the study to determine, he said.
Habitat change "is a nice theory, but there is no evidence of it," said Keister, who thinks the available data point to cougars. "We have no evidence that indicates anything else."
Vic Coggins, an ODFW biologist in Enterprise, agreed. Wallowa County's elk calf survival rate fell to a low of 18 per 100 cow elk in 2000, Coggins said. But it climbed to 26 calves per 100 cow elk this year, after hunters and biologists on damage-control operations killed 39 cougars, he said.
Keister suspects that predators and prey ultimately will come into balance. But that balance might mean more cougars than most people want, he said.
"We are very concerned; people should understand that," Keister said. "Human safety and livestock, that is our top concern."
When ODFW biologists go into the field now, Johnson said, they usually are armed with bear repellent, which also drives off cougars.
A few years ago, a department employee was forced to kill an attacking cougar in self-defense with a firearm, said ODFW biologist Pat Matthews of Enterprise.
"Those things didn't happen 20 years ago," Keister said. "For people who have been around here 20 or 30 years, it's real obvious things have changed."
Cow-calf ratios also are declining in the Catherine Creek, Starkey, Heppner, Mount Emily, Murderers Creek and Desolation game management units south and west of Wallowa County, ODFW officials said, and hunting ultimately could be cut back in those areas as well.
But the changes have been good for Wallowa Outdoors, an Enterprise business that specializes in archery and fishing equipment. Co-owner Heidi Wilson said more people are archery hunting for elk and deer because general archery season hunters don't have to compete for scarce tags.
The Wilsons also sell a lot of predator calls. Retailing for $13 to $30, the calls are designed to replicate distress noises made by rabbits, fawns and other small prey, she said. "We sure sell a lot of predator calls for people who want to hunt cougars and bears." Richard Cockle: 541-963-8890; rcockle@ucinet.com
