Study On Wolf Pack Size And Elk Survival Spotlights Strong Cougar Impact

Sorry, not a copy and paste but heres the link for those interested:

http://nwsportsmanmag.com/study-on-w...cougar-impact/

Very interesting, thanks for sharing. Will buying all predator tags this year.

Thanks for the link!

Makes sense that in years where the winters are more harsh that time is taken more so to go hunt preds.
Although anytime is a good time.
Also interesting is that more and more now, Cougars are springing up on the radar of many recent studies as one of the big pred factors in wildlife loss.

Cool info thanks!

Wish our province had something like this!!

the state wolf management plan does say that if “at-risk” big game herds are found to fall 25 percent below population benchmarks for two straight years or see their harvests decline by a quarter compared to the 10-year average for two consecutive seasons, it could trigger consideration of reducing local wolf numbers if the wolf recovery zone that the deer, elk, moose, etc., herd occupies has four or more breeding pairs.

"They found that outside of hunting harvest, 9 percent of cows and 40 percent of calves died annually.
Mountain lions accounted for 45 percent of calf deaths, 35 percent of cows.
Wolves were responsible for 32 percent of cow mortalities, 28 percent of calves."

Wow so in the states where there are much less wolves than BC and they finding them responsible for 32% cow and 28% of the calve deaths. Imagine what they are doing here.

From what I could find it looks like they estimate the population of wolves are 2.5x higher here in BC than Idaho (number of animals per 1,000 km²)
While it appears Idaho has 2.5x more cougars than we do here.

BC = 9 wolves per 1,000 km²
Idaho = 3.6 wolves per 1,000 km²

estimated 8,500 wolves in BC (from 2017) over 944,735 km²
estimated 770 wolves in Idaho over 216,440 km²

3,500 cougars estimated in BC
2,000 cougars estimated in Ihado

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Sirloin

"They found that outside of hunting harvest, 9 percent of cows and 40 percent of calves died annually.
Mountain lions accounted for 45 percent of calf deaths, 35 percent of cows.
Wolves were responsible for 32 percent of cow mortalities, 28 percent of calves."

Wow so in the states where there are much less wolves than BC and they finding them responsible for 32% cow and 28% of the calve deaths. Imagine what they are doing here.

From what I could find it looks like they estimate the population of wolves are 2.5x higher here in BC than Idaho (number of animals per 1,000 km²)
While it appears Idaho has 2.5x more cougars than we do here.

BC = 9 wolves per 1,000 km²
Idaho = 3.6 wolves per 1,000 km²

estimated 8,500 wolves in BC (from 2017) over 944,735 km²
estimated 770 wolves in Idaho over 216,440 km²

3,500 cougars estimated in BC
2,000 cougars estimated in Ihado

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Interesting that BC's estimated wolf population hasn't changed in 10 to 15 years. I would hazard to guess it is 3 to 4 times that number.

This study seems to make attempt to take onus off the wolf and lay blame to another underhunted predator.

Thanks for posting Bugle....I'm envious of Washington state and Idaho, as per the article they actually have pred management programs....

Quote:

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Originally Posted by gcreek

Interesting that BC's estimated wolf population hasn't changed in 10 to 15 years. I would hazard to guess it is 3 to 4 times that number.

This study seems to make attempt to take onus off the wolf and lay blame to another underhunted predator.

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Yup, you are probably right about the wolf population counts not being updated, imo.
As for "deflection", I don't think anyone is saying that in the study (they still talk about wolves and what should be done, especially bad winters etc)
It's just letting folks know there is another culprit putting a lot of pressure on game.
And again, lots of studies coming out with Cougar being even a bigger pred on #'s if they start to hone in on a certain species in a certain area.
Basically, once they get efficient/good at taking down certain game, they stick with it!