Wow, The late Season Elk in Gardiner, MT has been cancelled due to wolves. Didn't see that coming!!!

Numbers fall to 2,236 elk counted. The Montana Elk Plan established in 2004 called for a population of between 3-thousand to 5-thousand elk in the portion of the Northern elk herd that winters in Montana.

http://www.ktvq.com/news/gardiner-elk-hunt-falls-victim-to-wolves/

Sunlight Basin of Northern Wyoming is about the same, last I heard, no early general season, a handfull of cow tags, and only 10 late season any elk. We spent 20 days there this fall mountain goat hunting, and never seen a single elk. A few deer several grizzlies, but not an elk of moose.

NW MT will be bucks only for the next two years and I won't be surprised to see some restrictions on elk in this area as well.

The same thing is happening in other areas of the state. I live about 15 miles from a major winter range. For years we wintered between 1000 and 1500 elk every year. A few years ago a wolf pack found the winter range. The winter count this year (jan 2010) was less than 300. We use to have a pretty liberal season and would have between 300 and 400 cow permits and the herd was still growing. Starting this year no more hunting for cows and harder restrictions on bulls. And the really bad part is it is only going to get worse in the future because during the annual count there was almost no calf or yearling elk so there are no young elk to replace any that die.

Unless something changes the herd we built up for that last 60 years will be gone soon.

and folks wonder why we in the mt west have taken to "self managing" these animals.

The wolf predation problem is easily solved by the judicious application of the SSS method.

Shoot, Shovel, Shut up.

quote:

Originally posted by ravenr:
and folks wonder why we in the mt west have taken to "self managing" these animals.

Evidently you are not doing a very good job.

rest assured,i'm doing MY part

You boys have major problems. Them damn wolves will eat them selves out of house and home then die off. Wolves are a killing machine. They must be controlled. We shoot every wolf we see.
The State of Ak. finally got some folks with balls on the Board of Fish and Game. We are now shooting wolves from helicopters and finishing off pups in the den. Pretty radical. It is working.
The caribou calf recovery rate increase is amazing.
The old timers in Alaska had a solution when wolves or bears got out of control. I don't agree with it, but it worked. They would gut shoot them. They used what ever caliber was available. If you gut shoot a wolf he will die. Simple solution. There was no carcass to get rid of and no explanation to the game wardens.
Funny thing about laws, if the public disagrees with them they will find a way around them. Remember the 55 MPH speed limit and Prohibition?
You boys have a problem. If you don't take care of it, you can forget big game hunting.