idelkhntr
New member
In the past two years I have seen upwards of 40 Moose each year. Many of those sightings were cows with calves and in most cases two calves. This year I have seen about 20 Moose. The difference I noticed last night. Very few of the sightings this year have been calves and I have not seen any cow with twins.
Let me follow up with this. In June of this year I was going into a location that I scout for Elk. On the way in I saw five wolves and about forty or fifty cow Elk all in the same area. The cows had not had their calves yet so I was concerned with the calf survival for this area. In July I checked my trail camera where I was scouting. I had hundreds of pictures with Elk in them and in general there was at least two calves per cow in the picture. One picture had six calves and one cow. Obviously there were other cows there they just weren't on camera. During the archery season in September I saw a ton of Elk and a lot of calves. It seems apparant for now at least that the wolves had not had an impact on the Elk population per say other than they were moving around a lot and were more quiet than normal. I did see two more wolves the first weekend of the archery season and a couple of nights had wolves responding to my bugles. None of them I got close enough to shoot. In the three years prior to this year I had only seen two wolves and that was in 2009. This year seven total seen and a few others heard. So there definitely are more wolves around than in the past.
All of this being said, it makes me wonder if the wolves are focusing more on the Moose than the Elk. I remember a couple of years back I helped Idaho Fish and Game capture Mule Deer for radio collaring. I inquired with one of their biologists about how they felt the wolves were effecting the Elk herd around where I live. His response was that from what they could tell most of the wolves were staying up in the mountains in the winter and had definitely had a significant impact on the Moose population. At the time they had not seen any of the known packs around where I live following the Elk out into their wintering areas. That changed this last year as a small pack of five seemed to follow the Elk as they migrated from winter range to summer range.
Anyway, just some of my own thoughts. Mostly after realizing last night that I was still seeing Moose, just no calves. I do know there are move wolves in the area this year than in years past. Last night while I was driving out from my hunting area I noticed something coming on the side of the road. I slammed on my brakes, as did the cow moose and both of us slid on the gravel. When we stopped her face was about five feet from my left side bumper. She turned around, jumped the fence and went to eating sage brush. After cleaning out my drawers, I headed home. Have a good one all.
Let me follow up with this. In June of this year I was going into a location that I scout for Elk. On the way in I saw five wolves and about forty or fifty cow Elk all in the same area. The cows had not had their calves yet so I was concerned with the calf survival for this area. In July I checked my trail camera where I was scouting. I had hundreds of pictures with Elk in them and in general there was at least two calves per cow in the picture. One picture had six calves and one cow. Obviously there were other cows there they just weren't on camera. During the archery season in September I saw a ton of Elk and a lot of calves. It seems apparant for now at least that the wolves had not had an impact on the Elk population per say other than they were moving around a lot and were more quiet than normal. I did see two more wolves the first weekend of the archery season and a couple of nights had wolves responding to my bugles. None of them I got close enough to shoot. In the three years prior to this year I had only seen two wolves and that was in 2009. This year seven total seen and a few others heard. So there definitely are more wolves around than in the past.
All of this being said, it makes me wonder if the wolves are focusing more on the Moose than the Elk. I remember a couple of years back I helped Idaho Fish and Game capture Mule Deer for radio collaring. I inquired with one of their biologists about how they felt the wolves were effecting the Elk herd around where I live. His response was that from what they could tell most of the wolves were staying up in the mountains in the winter and had definitely had a significant impact on the Moose population. At the time they had not seen any of the known packs around where I live following the Elk out into their wintering areas. That changed this last year as a small pack of five seemed to follow the Elk as they migrated from winter range to summer range.
Anyway, just some of my own thoughts. Mostly after realizing last night that I was still seeing Moose, just no calves. I do know there are move wolves in the area this year than in years past. Last night while I was driving out from my hunting area I noticed something coming on the side of the road. I slammed on my brakes, as did the cow moose and both of us slid on the gravel. When we stopped her face was about five feet from my left side bumper. She turned around, jumped the fence and went to eating sage brush. After cleaning out my drawers, I headed home. Have a good one all.
