BigHornRam
Well-known member
For elk, a simpler approach makes sense - Friday, Jan. 20, 2006
SUMMARY: FWP proposal promises to make public hunting more effective in maintaining healthy, sustainable elk populations.
We've enjoyed watching, from the heart of Missoula, elk feeding on Mount Jumbo in recent days. It's not easy to articulate all the reasons these magnificent animals contribute to our quality of life here and throughout Montana. It's not just that they're fascinating to watch and delicious to eat, which they are. They also help animate the wildness that so many of us value in this place. Elk contribute to the social, cultural, spiritual and economic fabric of Montana.
Montana's elk herds are thriving, but they're not anything we can take for granted. Their prosperity and ours requires skillful management. A key aspect of elk management is hunting. Elk are a huntable renewable resource that feed many Montana families while also providing recreation and economic activity. Hunters generate through license fees, special taxes and private donations most of the money to underwrite elk management and habitat protection. Hunting also is the most effective method of keeping elk populations in balance with their environment - an environment that, of course, includes people.
These are all reasons why a change in elk-hunting regulations under consideration by the state Fish, Wildlife and Parks Commission merits your attention.
The change actually amounts to undoing many years of elk-management changes that haven't been entirely successful. New regulations, as proposed by the Department of Fish, Wildlife and Parks, generally would simplify and consolidate elk-hunting seasons statewide while bolstering the role of public hunting in elk management.
The “change” involves philosophy as much as regulation.
Montana has traditionally had a five-week-long general big-game hunting season starting the third Sunday in October. Over the years, wildlife managers have added a variety of early and late seasons in an effort to better control elk populations in particular hunting districts.
To generalize a bit, the proliferation of early and late seasons has coincided with decisions by many private landowners to lease hunting rights to outfitters or to limit or eliminate the public hunting access they once provided. Hunting access has been greatly affected by changing ownership and land use and the growing economic value placed on opportunities to hunt trophy bull elk. Many landowners have found it profitable to restrict hunting during the traditional five-week season to people willing to pay top dollar to hunt big bulls, leaving it to FWP to control overall elk populations through specially tailored seasons targeting cows and calves, which have less appeal to paying clients. This has made it possible for landowners to cash in on the commercial value of bulls by limiting access while escaping the shared responsibility and costs of population control. This has been a step toward the commercialization of wildlife, a public resource, a trend that creates a real and present danger to the future of public hunting. Because public hunting is necessary for sound elk management - as well as to our way of life - that's not a good trend.
In any event, state wildlife managers say this approach isn't working to control populations. Elk numbers exceed the levels deemed desirable in half of the 44 elk management units statewide. As much as we love seeing elk around us year-round, we also understand too many hungry elk can be a hardship for people trying to make a living farming and ranching. There's room to quibble with the state's elk-population objectives - they may be too conservative - but there's no doubt that creating lots of special seasons hasn't succeeded in achieving those objectives.
One big problem is that elk are highly mobile and are quick to respond to hunting pressure. That makes hunting them on a geographically fragmented basis somewhat ineffective. They quickly relocate to a safe haven.
FWP believes that focusing hunting during the five-week general big-game season will work better - that it did work better back in the 1960s before the proliferation of special seasons. The simpler general season applies hunting pressure broadly, making it less likely that elk will find safe haven simply by hopping a fence or trotting over a district boundary.
With this more straight-forward approach, landowners will have more incentive to provide reasonable access to hunters, unless they want to support a whole lot more elk on their property and suffer the ire of neighbors overrun by elk. Obviously, no landowner should or would be forced to welcome hunters they don't want, but neither should the public bend over backward in solving wildlife problems created when landowners won't cooperate to prevent them.
Even within the five-week season, opportunities to take antlerless elk can be increased or decreased as population trends dictate. The FWP commission also has the ability to extend the season as circumstances warrant. And wildlife managers still will be able to organize limited game-damage hunts to deal with specific depredation problems.
Not surprisingly, the current, more balkanized elk regulations have some supporters. Some outfitters, landowners and hunters have been beneficiaries of the opportunities created by fragmented seasons. Some of those special late seasons can make it a bit easier to fill a freezer for those who can take advantage of the opportunity. We'd suggest, however, that people who look at the big picture, rather than individual pixels, will find FWP's season-simplification proposal compelling.
SUMMARY: FWP proposal promises to make public hunting more effective in maintaining healthy, sustainable elk populations.
We've enjoyed watching, from the heart of Missoula, elk feeding on Mount Jumbo in recent days. It's not easy to articulate all the reasons these magnificent animals contribute to our quality of life here and throughout Montana. It's not just that they're fascinating to watch and delicious to eat, which they are. They also help animate the wildness that so many of us value in this place. Elk contribute to the social, cultural, spiritual and economic fabric of Montana.
Montana's elk herds are thriving, but they're not anything we can take for granted. Their prosperity and ours requires skillful management. A key aspect of elk management is hunting. Elk are a huntable renewable resource that feed many Montana families while also providing recreation and economic activity. Hunters generate through license fees, special taxes and private donations most of the money to underwrite elk management and habitat protection. Hunting also is the most effective method of keeping elk populations in balance with their environment - an environment that, of course, includes people.
These are all reasons why a change in elk-hunting regulations under consideration by the state Fish, Wildlife and Parks Commission merits your attention.
The change actually amounts to undoing many years of elk-management changes that haven't been entirely successful. New regulations, as proposed by the Department of Fish, Wildlife and Parks, generally would simplify and consolidate elk-hunting seasons statewide while bolstering the role of public hunting in elk management.
The “change” involves philosophy as much as regulation.
Montana has traditionally had a five-week-long general big-game hunting season starting the third Sunday in October. Over the years, wildlife managers have added a variety of early and late seasons in an effort to better control elk populations in particular hunting districts.
To generalize a bit, the proliferation of early and late seasons has coincided with decisions by many private landowners to lease hunting rights to outfitters or to limit or eliminate the public hunting access they once provided. Hunting access has been greatly affected by changing ownership and land use and the growing economic value placed on opportunities to hunt trophy bull elk. Many landowners have found it profitable to restrict hunting during the traditional five-week season to people willing to pay top dollar to hunt big bulls, leaving it to FWP to control overall elk populations through specially tailored seasons targeting cows and calves, which have less appeal to paying clients. This has made it possible for landowners to cash in on the commercial value of bulls by limiting access while escaping the shared responsibility and costs of population control. This has been a step toward the commercialization of wildlife, a public resource, a trend that creates a real and present danger to the future of public hunting. Because public hunting is necessary for sound elk management - as well as to our way of life - that's not a good trend.
In any event, state wildlife managers say this approach isn't working to control populations. Elk numbers exceed the levels deemed desirable in half of the 44 elk management units statewide. As much as we love seeing elk around us year-round, we also understand too many hungry elk can be a hardship for people trying to make a living farming and ranching. There's room to quibble with the state's elk-population objectives - they may be too conservative - but there's no doubt that creating lots of special seasons hasn't succeeded in achieving those objectives.
One big problem is that elk are highly mobile and are quick to respond to hunting pressure. That makes hunting them on a geographically fragmented basis somewhat ineffective. They quickly relocate to a safe haven.
FWP believes that focusing hunting during the five-week general big-game season will work better - that it did work better back in the 1960s before the proliferation of special seasons. The simpler general season applies hunting pressure broadly, making it less likely that elk will find safe haven simply by hopping a fence or trotting over a district boundary.
With this more straight-forward approach, landowners will have more incentive to provide reasonable access to hunters, unless they want to support a whole lot more elk on their property and suffer the ire of neighbors overrun by elk. Obviously, no landowner should or would be forced to welcome hunters they don't want, but neither should the public bend over backward in solving wildlife problems created when landowners won't cooperate to prevent them.
Even within the five-week season, opportunities to take antlerless elk can be increased or decreased as population trends dictate. The FWP commission also has the ability to extend the season as circumstances warrant. And wildlife managers still will be able to organize limited game-damage hunts to deal with specific depredation problems.
Not surprisingly, the current, more balkanized elk regulations have some supporters. Some outfitters, landowners and hunters have been beneficiaries of the opportunities created by fragmented seasons. Some of those special late seasons can make it a bit easier to fill a freezer for those who can take advantage of the opportunity. We'd suggest, however, that people who look at the big picture, rather than individual pixels, will find FWP's season-simplification proposal compelling.
