Oregon Cow Elk Tags !!

[Little Big Man MT Chris]

Any other people from Oregon somewhat concerned or shocked or alarmed by the amount of Cow tags they’re increasing in the state of Oregon ? I’m pretty somewhat alarmed and concerned in one of the areas I hunt they’ve issued as many tags as the last 4 seasons combined, I’ve already sent an email to the game biologist for my area asking them why ??? just wanted to put this out here for other people in Oregon and if they’ve paid attention to what’s going on. after reading stories about southwestern Colorado and when they thought they had an over abundance of elk in the 90s and they did massive cow Hunts , how that has come to be a decision they regretted decades later.

 

[belshawelk]

Ya its a problem. In a couple years they will cut tags back because they will be under population.

 

[rtraverdavis]

I’ve voiced my concerns as well, and have been told it’s because elk are over management objective in so many areas. Who’s management objective?

 

[belshawelk]

I’ve voiced my concerns as well, and have been told it’s because elk are over management objective in so many areas. Who’s management objective?

I doubt any hunter in Oregon will say they see too many elk in Oregon. Gee, which one to shoot.

 

[Little Big Man MT Chris]

Who’s management objective?

that’s been my thought today as well , our wildlife belongs to us the people , and if we feel the state is mismanaging something, or could be , it’s kind of a helpless feeling , like we don’t really have a voice. I also understand that the amount of people hunting in Oregon is dropping, and was wondering how much revenue that is costing ODFW and if that or what is really the driving force behind some of these decisions, also I noticed that the standard for a Blacktail Deer has been lowered to a spike , from a forked antler , it seems like across the board they’re just saying shoot anything we don’t care on some level.

 

[dan.kirkpatrick]

so what units have these increased cow tags??ive cow hunted maury twice and silvies late cow last year and there are very few elk to be found!! ive struck out on even cow elk the last 3 years strait..your right though,i think elk numbers themselfs are way down alot///at least in the high desert,maury,and silvies areas.

 

[rtraverdavis]

it’s kind of a helpless feeling , like we don’t really have a voice.

We had an opportunity to comment, and I hope you did:

ODFW Seeking Hunter Comments on Deer/Elk Season Structure

It will be interesting to see what kind of influence this has. There are already some comments that I would love for ODFW to take under advisement and implement, and some others that make me cringe. I’ll be asking for a push for habitat studies and improvements, a drastic decrease in spike elk...

www.hunttalk.com

What they’ll do with all that hunter input data remains to be seen. Also, the elk “problem” in Oregon was discussed a bit already here:

OR excess elk

https://www.hcn.org/articles/north-wildlife-oregon-elk-vex-landowners-and-game-managers Not being in their shoes, and not ever seeing their land, I shouldn't comment...BUT.... if you don't want to deal with elk on your lands, either don't ranch or move to elsewhere. I mean you could say the...

www.hunttalk.com

I think you’ll see that the likely cause of increased cow tags is the main topic of discussion in that article that @neffa3 posted. I do know that OHA has been advocating for sound management that respects landowners, but doesn’t also completely strafe the elk population. Maybe @FI460 can speak to some of the specifics on that front.
Full disclosure, I killed a cow last year on a tag that was new for the year in the unit I hunted. Super long season. Lots of private land in the unit, which was no doubt the reason the tags were issued in the first place. I figured it would be a one-and-done deal on the number of cow tags for the unit, but they actually combined that hunt with another unit and added 400 or so more tags. I guess they’re still not knocked back to where they “should” be...
I don’t blame the ODFW biologists. It’s big balancing act they’ve got to pull off. But ODFW’s primary objective is by statute to maintain healthy herds of native wildlife. Hopefully they won’t need to painfully reminded of that fact.

 

[rtraverdavis]

so what units have these increased cow tags??ive cow hunted maury twice and silvies late cow last year and there are very few elk to be found!! ive struck out on even cow elk the last 3 years strait..your right though,i think elk numbers themselfs are way down alot///at least in the high desert,maury,and silvies areas.

Check out the 2020 reg book. Lots of the word “NEW” highlighted in yellow in the 200 section.

 

[PaulRevere]

Management objectives are bullshit, e.g. Montana.

 

[ScottP]

Any other people from Oregon somewhat concerned or shocked or alarmed by the amount of Cow tags they’re increasing in the state of Oregon ? I’m pretty somewhat alarmed and concerned in one of the areas I hunt they’ve issued as many tags as the last 4 seasons combined, I’ve already sent an email to the game biologist for my area asking them why ??? just wanted to put this out here for other people in Oregon and if they’ve paid attention to what’s going on. after reading stories about southwestern Colorado and when they thought they had an over abundance of elk in the 90s and they did massive cow Hunts , how that has come to be a decision they regretted decades later.

A lot of people are concerned about ODFW's strategy concerning elk. OHA stated in their publication that the commission pretty much ignored their concerns about the changes in the elk regs. Unfortunately for us hunters and those that want lots of elk, agency "management objectives" are only very loosely tied to the ecological carrying capacity of the habitat, they're much more reflective of the social carrying capacity. OR is hampered by several issues, and elk damage is one of them. ODFW is legislatively mandated to address it. I don't spend any time in salem, but the interests of the agricultural industry are heavily influencing the management of elk, which certainly is not unique in the West. Out east, most of the antlerless harvest occurs under the damage hunts. In 2020 there are huge areas of private lands that are now general antlerless hunts Aug - Nov. Time will tell if this backfires.

The HCN article missed the mark pretty badly. I sent the author a very detailed description of how she could have given that proper coverage.

 

[Little Big Man MT Chris]

I got an email back from the biologist , he asked for my number and we talked on the phone for an hour , it’s was a good conversation, to be fair , he brought to attention something in the book I missed because Roosevelt cow tags are draw only and they are limited in all of the units up and down the Oregon coast.

The core unit I hunt I hadn’t paid attention to the cow tags, because like most of us I’m hunting a bull , But I’ve been building points for my fiancé because she wants to do her first elk hunt and I thought a cow hunt would be a great way to do it so but to get a cow tag it takes years 4 to 5 years to draw one most of the time not always. So when I looked into the book to see what cow hon I wanted to try to get her to draw this year I noticed all the new tags in my favorite unit and freaked out along with most everyone else I know . but the biologist pointed out that those Cow tags I thought were new because they are highlighted in bright yellow in this year‘s book , I thought they were newly created additional tags , but he told me those tags have always been issued in that unit but in past seasons they were different small sub hunts within the unit , and that this year the state of Oregon got rid of all the tiny sub hunts in that unit and combined them into two large sub hunts and separated the unit in half .

He also did say that there were a few extra Cow tags this season in addition to Past cow tags for this unit because the state of Oregon hast to deal with damage control. And this will probably be happening in future seasons as well.

So because I keep my books from past seasons I looked up the hunts that he said and sure enough there was all kinds a little mini sub hunts and I’ll kinds of cow tags listed for past years , but there were extra tags in the unit but not nearly as many as I had thought and so I wanted to make that known publicly.

he was thankful that I called he said he likes talking to hunters and he explained to me that he prefers Cow tags being in the hands of Public land hunters as opposed to being given to logging companies and LOP owners for damage, When they increase Cow tags to give to public land Hunter such as myself there’s only a certain amount of damage tags they can issue and the more tags that public hunters get are less damage control tags for logging companies or Private land owners who own a lot of farming and agriculture and request a bunch damage tags and pass them out to family they have to limit the amount that they gave unit wide as they increase our number of tags they get less , he told me.

Another thing that he said that the state of Oregon does is they say they want a certain amount of Cal tags in a unit and based on past years they know how many tags get drawn and how many people don’t even buy the tag they’re drawn for so they end up giving a few extra tags for example let’s say they want 35 tags in a unit but every year 4 people draw the don’t buy it and hunt with the tag from the 35 tags that were drawn so they’ll put 39 tags the draw for the unit because they know four of them on avg won’t be used . but they still want at least 35 active tags in the unit. Which is another reason for extra tags.

He also told me when we talked about the unit I hunt he said when they do a flyover he said this year they counted 2000 elk from the airplane. And if all the Cow tags were successful even though they won’t be that still he said less than 10% of just the elk seen on the flyover. And that in the unit I hunt he thinks the number of elk is over 7000.

he also said that due to some things they changed a few years back about archery hunters not being able to take cows anymore in most units and handicapped and disabled people no longer being able just to shoot anything that they see from the road regardless of sex or antler restrictions and now they actually have to hunt on a tag for that unit and take whatever is the the legal antlered animal for that unit.

he said that has caused the Roosevelt herds to be on the rise for the last three or four years he said that the best indicator would help them manage the elk better was when they started doing mandatory reporting he said up until that time only 40% of the hunters reported what they harvested and for them it was a hard way to manage herds and then the only way they could really tell when animals were dying off in an area is when they would do the flyovers and you know for years and years in a row you fly a unit and they see 400 elk in this one area and then all of a sudden three years in a row it’s 200 they knew elk were on decline in that area , that’s one of the reasons they started doing the mandatory Reporting and a $25 fine if you don’t report, said since then it’s super high 90 percentile of people reporting and they were able to determine what hunts to get rid of in past years to help increase the numbers of Roosevelts. And that was one of the biggest reasons they got rid of that handicap tag is because those people were doing mass damage . He said they hadn’t got all the numbers back but he expected that this year the Roosevelt her numbers would be on another year of increase. Anyways I just wanted to pass on what our conversation was due to his openness I’m not gonna give out his name or the units we discussed.

He did say the best thing that we can do as public land hunters was continue to call our representatives and continue to make contact with biologist like himself and let our voices be heard you know join hunters associations and conservation groups because he did say the people that influence people in government are very well-connected and have lots of money like we didn’t know that but those are his comments about that and he’s not a big fan of the cow tags either but it’s part of his job.

 

[ScottP]

Glad you took the time to call, and thanks for posting it here. Sounds like he didn't sugar coat it. A lot is currently at stake with the antlerless harvest and damage. If you saw some of the proposed legislation last year, you'd about sh*t your pants it was so bad. We have to make sure that wildlife management stays with the agency and does't get dictated by bad legislation.

I got an email back from the biologist , he asked for my number and we talked on the phone for an hour , it’s was a good conversation, to be fair , he brought to attention something in the book I missed because Roosevelt cow tags are draw only and they are limited in all of the units up and down the Oregon coast.

The core unit I hunt I hadn’t paid attention to the cow tags, because like most of us I’m hunting a bull , But I’ve been building points for my fiancé because she wants to do her first elk hunt and I thought a cow hunt would be a great way to do it so but to get a cow tag it takes years 4 to 5 years to draw one most of the time not always. So when I looked into the book to see what cow hon I wanted to try to get her to draw this year I noticed all the new tags in my favorite unit and freaked out along with most everyone else I know . but the biologist pointed out that those Cow tags I thought were new because they are highlighted in bright yellow in this year‘s book , I thought they were newly created additional tags , but he told me those tags have always been issued in that unit but in past seasons they were different small sub hunts within the unit , and that this year the state of Oregon got rid of all the tiny sub hunts in that unit and combined them into two large sub hunts and separated the unit in half .

He also did say that there were a few extra Cow tags this season in addition to Past cow tags for this unit because the state of Oregon hast to deal with damage control. And this will probably be happening in future seasons as well.

So because I keep my books from past seasons I looked up the hunts that he said and sure enough there was all kinds a little mini sub hunts and I’ll kinds of cow tags listed for past years , but there were extra tags in the unit but not nearly as many as I had thought and so I wanted to make that known publicly.

he was thankful that I called he said he likes talking to hunters and he explained to me that he prefers Cow tags being in the hands of Public land hunters as opposed to being given to logging companies and LOP owners for damage, When they increase Cow tags to give to public land Hunter such as myself there’s only a certain amount of damage tags they can issue and the more tags that public hunters get are less damage control tags for logging companies or Private land owners who own a lot of farming and agriculture and request a bunch damage tags and pass them out to family they have to limit the amount that they gave unit wide as they increase our number of tags they get less , he told me.

Another thing that he said that the state of Oregon does is they say they want a certain amount of Cal tags in a unit and based on past years they know how many tags get drawn and how many people don’t even buy the tag they’re drawn for so they end up giving a few extra tags for example let’s say they want 35 tags in a unit but every year 4 people draw the don’t buy it and hunt with the tag from the 35 tags that were drawn so they’ll put 39 tags the draw for the unit because they know four of them on avg won’t be used . but they still want at least 35 active tags in the unit. Which is another reason for extra tags.

He also told me when we talked about the unit I hunt he said when they do a flyover he said this year they counted 2000 elk from the airplane. And if all the Cow tags were successful even though they won’t be that still he said less than 10% of just the elk seen on the flyover. And that in the unit I hunt he thinks the number of elk is over 7000.

he also said that due to some things they changed a few years back about archery hunters not being able to take cows anymore in most units and handicapped and disabled people no longer being able just to shoot anything that they see from the road regardless of sex or antler restrictions and now they actually have to hunt on a tag for that unit and take whatever is the the legal antlered animal for that unit.

he said that has caused the Roosevelt herds to be on the rise for the last three or four years he said that the best indicator would help them manage the elk better was when they started doing mandatory reporting he said up until that time only 40% of the hunters reported what they harvested and for them it was a hard way to manage herds and then the only way they could really tell when animals were dying off in an area is when they would do the flyovers and you know for years and years in a row you fly a unit and they see 400 elk in this one area and then all of a sudden three years in a row it’s 200 they knew elk were on decline in that area , that’s one of the reasons they started doing the mandatory Reporting and a $25 fine if you don’t report, said since then it’s super high 90 percentile of people reporting and they were able to determine what hunts to get rid of in past years to help increase the numbers of Roosevelts. And that was one of the biggest reasons they got rid of that handicap tag is because those people were doing mass damage . He said they hadn’t got all the numbers back but he expected that this year the Roosevelt her numbers would be on another year of increase. Anyways I just wanted to pass on what our conversation was due to his openness I’m not gonna give out his name or the units we discussed.

He did say the best thing that we can do as public land hunters was continue to call our representatives and continue to make contact with biologist like himself and let our voices be heard you know join hunters associations and conservation groups because he did say the people that influence people in government are very well-connected and have lots of money like we didn’t know that but those are his comments about that and he’s not a big fan of the cow tags either but it’s part of his job.

 

[Little Big Man MT Chris]

Glad you took the time to call, and thanks for posting it here. Sounds like he didn't sugar coat it. A lot is currently at stake with the antlerless harvest and damage. If you saw some of the proposed legislation last year, you'd about sh*t your pants it was so bad. We have to make sure that wildlife management stays with the agency and does't get dictated by bad legislation.

I had a great time talking with him , he told me that I could call him back or email him anytime with any questions or to talk about whatever, and I learned some things and that was one of the main reasons I called I was concerned about the cow tags but it did calm me down a little bit when he pointed out that 95% of the tags I was concerned about had already been in the unit in years past, but because they’re highlighted in yellow this year under a new hunt a it gives people the impression he said that their additional cow tags but when in reality they’re just re-distributing them a different way from years past which makes everybody believe that it’s something new that hasn’t been there when it already was.
Dude knows his stuff was very polite and a good listener. And then in the future I won’t hesitate to call or email him now that I’ve got his info