The state of hunting in BC

[BearSupreme]

Hey everyone,

Im not sure if this is the right area for this post so please move it if need be.

I want to get an idea of your hunting experience in BC as the years go by. Everyone I have talked to, and from my experience, hunting in BC gets less productive every year. You talk to hunters who were fortunate to hunt in the 70's and 80's and the stories they will tell you about ungulate numbers and what they were as opposed to now. Most people had the opportunity to see Boone and Crockett class animals on opening day and everyone got a chance to fill their tags during a season. Ive seen some mounts of world class mule deer that came out of the Creston area and the last year I lived there (3 years ago) there wasnt even a mule deer entry into the yearly Rod and Gun competition. Everywhere in BC, excluding a few pockets that still hold decent game numbers but are dwindling as well, game numbers are falling year after year. I barely see animals near roads at night when I remember seeing them frequently growing up. I remember this site used to be loaded daily with people posting their kills. Are people just not posting or is there nothing to post? I know Ive had nothing to post since 2013 and I used to fill all my tags. I hear of more and more people hunting in other provinces because of the low opportunity here. Something needs to change or else we are going to watch BC turn into a baron wasteland. I want to start a debate on what needs to change.
Debate topics:

Predators - In my experience this is seems to be about 80% of the problem. Wolves, Cougars and Grizzlies have all increase greatly since the peak in ungulate numbers. Wolves are becoming a huge problem with ranchers in the cattle industry as well as effecting game numbers. I personally have seen more and more wolf sign in particular in my 8 years of hunting. I have even started to hear them howl more frequently. New studies are coming out talking about the impact that cougars have been having as well. Cougar conflict is rapidly increasing in urban areas and Ive seen videos on this site with 5 or more cougars together on game camera footage. Ive even noticed more cougars on my game cameras. Grizzly sightings are way up and government numbers are clearly very low. I know in the Creston valley the government only recognizes one grizzly in the valley but I know farmers who can show you 3 or more on their property alone. Predators are currently not being managed due to pressure to BAN predator hunting all together. Small amounts of control come from hunters and trappers but this is currently not enough. Here is a really good article talking about the "Predator death spiral" that some US states are facing.
http://blog.eastmans.com/the-predator-death-spiral/
Predators are hard to hunt so we need to share information with each other on hunting tips for predators. Its probably going to come down to hunting them because the gov will never control predators especially with BC leaning more left each day.


Over hunting - Personally I see this to be only 20% of the problem. I dont think over hunting has got us to this situation but I do think it needs to change until we get our game numbers back up to GROWING levels and not steady/dwindling numbers like we have now. I do believe our hunting seasons are too long and can only be feasible at these levels if predators are kept in check. Hunting can only effect a percentage of the numbers because there is a lot of area that is un-huntable for humans but remains accessible to predators. Hunters do have a lot of access to areas and the more animals get chased around the more they are likely to abort their young for next year, whether you shoot them or not.

Habitat loss - I dont see this as an issue at all for the most part. There are so many areas available in BC that have everything that animals need, and there are no animals there. Ive been to areas that used to be flooded with deer/elk/moose sign that are now completely void of any sign other than a couple doe tracts and predator tracts. Anyone who thinks habitat loss is the leading cause of all of this has obviously never left the city limits IMO.

Liberal hunting seasons and poor regulations - We have the longest hunting seasons in North America, most states dont even allow hunting during the rut because they know what it does to game numbers. It makes no sense to take out all your breeding males before they get to breed IMO. Most places across North America have gotten rid of "4 point" type seasons because it leads to poor genetics and eventually worse game numbers. Numbers go down every year and in the 8 years I have been hunting the regulations have changed minimally in some places and none in other places. You can still go shoot an elk, a moose and 3 deer a year. From your experience, does this seem sustainable when you have 100,000+ hunters in BC? And thats not even including the guides who get almost as many LEH opportunities that the rest of BC gets and the natives that get their amount too. This seems like the BC gov AND the BC wildlife federation know they are in a animal death spiral and have their heads in the sand. They need that tag income even though the opportunity isnt there. I wonder what kind of feedback they are getting on their "random game survey's" because all the ones Ive done in the last 3.5 years have been "Yes I hunted for the animal. No I didnt get one." The numbers that they seem to want are drastically low as well. In the Kootenay valley they estimated the elk population at about 16,000 elk when they started the cow season. Their goal was to bring that number down to 4,500. They got that number by allowing hundreds of cow draws every year. The problem is that as the elk numbers are being lowered in that valley, other elk from outside the valley are going to be moving in to fill those spots. If they got to their number of 4,500 they have also lowered the sounding elk numbers by a lot as well, all while ignoring the predator and hunting pressure increases. Even with the terrible moose numbers in the Chilcotin region they still have cow and calf draws. This makes no sense, even if 80% of the ones that were going to be "winter losses" any way survive, thats still more animals for next year!
I had a moose draw in 7-03 last year near McBride. I got one of 54 tags. The guides get 30% of LEH numbers so they would get about 16 draws for that area.That means if they are allowing about 70 tags and thats 10% of the bulls in that area, then they estimate there are 700 bulls in that area! There is really only 2 valleys to go down in that area, and one is a road closure. We were there for a week in early October when the rut should be almost in full swing. We saw 1 bull, 1 cow and 1 calf and 2 gut piles. One was from a guy who lucked out and got a spike moose after he left the baron wasteland of pink mountain. We saw hardly any tracks or fresh sign. We walked as far up the mountains as we could and walked in the grassy meadows of the valley bottom and we found hardly anything. We did see a pack of 8 wolves running down the river and we heard them howling almost every night. 70 bulls a year is RIDICULOUS for that area. They are nowhere close to those numbers yet they still will sell you the tag!! Im sure its becoming the same for a lot of areas in BC.


What do we do about this? We wont have any hunting in BC at this rate and we dont even have to wait for the NDP to make it a law! Where is the BCWF? What are they using our money for because I dont see a lot of conservation happening at this point. Lets get some discussion going because we all need to do our part to make sure hunting can survive this mess we are in.

[butcher]

Sooo...over hunting is not a problem and yet the regulations and seasons are too liberal?

And habitat loss is NOT an issue?

I will admit this is an interesting point of view.

[BearSupreme]

Sooo...over hunting is not a problem and yet the regulations and seasons are too liberal?

And habitat loss is NOT an issue?

I will admit this is an interesting point of view.

Over hunting is a problem but not the main problem, hence the percentages in my opinion. I stated my reason why habitat loss is not an issue, there is lots of prime habitat where animals used to live, and are not there. Even with the habitat loss we've had, there are still more than enough areas to have higher game numbers than we do now.

[HarryToolips]

Good post, we all share your concern..I was told that there are twice as many hunters in one fifth the area down in Washington state..so imo, regulated hunting USUALLY isn't the issue, it's the other factors you pointed out, mostly preds, but, I will say habitat loss is a problem in areas such as region 8, where development is occurring at a rapid rate on prime wintering habitat - remember: the carrying capacity of an environment is dictated by the winter range..bad winters will also greatly effect ungulate numbers, and region 4 experienced from what I hear the worst winter in a long while...where regulated hunting can/has had an effect in certain areas is where there is too much road access - I'm an advocate for a certain % more of FSR spur roads being deactivated, it not only provides a bit of a safe haven from regulated hunting, but a safe haven from unregulated and FN hunting..

Most of our regulated hunting focuses on male only harvest, and many of these areas sperm supply isn't an issue..the EK antlerless elk season was due to pressure on our govt from the cattlemans association, and hopefully in the future they don't give in like that again.. there are always other factors that most people don't realize as well, take for example, region 4 where Mule deer are hurting in certain areas, the whitetails have been detrimental to them, like keeping pred numbers higher for example..

Its not all bleak though: I've seen MD in certain parts of region 4 where I haven't seen them ever before, as well as seeing more in east reg8, and elk are on the upswing according to the govt in certain regions...WT are doing just fine in my observations, they just do what WT do and adapt to hunting pressure, and breed prolifically...I've counted lots in winter ranges I know in recent years, and in one part of the EK where I was, they were all over the place..these forest fires we've had will also benefit ungulates in those areas greatly...cheers..

[Pemby_mess]

Over hunting is a problem but not the main problem, hence the percentages in my opinion. I stated my reason why habitat loss is not an issue, there is lots of prime habitat where animals used to live, and are not there. Even with the habitat loss we've had, there are still more than enough areas to have higher game numbers than we do now.

A big issue regarding habitat is "habitat interconnectivity". You can have all manner of protected pockets but if the land base in between contains significant hazard, or otherwise doesn't meet the diverse needs of large mammals the pockets aren't going to sustain a population. Habitat isolation is actually what creates different subspecies and differentiates unique species - eventually. It's always occurred naturally, only now human development is arguably occurring faster than animals can adapt to.

I dont think you can separate predation out of habitat fragmentation. If you think the former is a problem, so must too be the latter. Predation is a problem for sustaining large ungulate populations for sure, but combine that pressure with restrictions on their natural movements and access to necessary resources, and you're going to see higher than normal predation, in turn creating larger predator populations and additional pressure within their population cycles.

I'm no biologist, but I know you can't boil a complex system down to one or two particular issues. Of the variables having affect on species resiliency, habitat quality and quantity has to be the most significant.

[Wild one]

It varies depending on location and species when it comes to the state of hunting in BC. The reasons also vary for why some species and areas have gone down hill

It seems many want to pick one issue and say it is the cause for decline of every species BC wide but that is not the case

I don't believe we as hunters have no impact either. From hunting hidden pockets that go almost untouched I notice a difference in game numbers. If I did not I would not focus so much effort finding them

I often wonder if it is more about the stress of human activity than the number of animals killed. I question this because I notice a big difference in sign/sightings in areas that are higher traffic beyond hunting pressure

[VFX_man]

Another factor . . .

There are 4 to 8 large animal vehicle collisions

every hour in Canada

http://www.wildlifecollisions.ca/thefacts.htm

[Pemby_mess]

^ that's definitely something to be taken into account when habitat interconnectivy is considered. Hence the 8foot fences and wildlife overpasses you see when traveling through the national parks. There are tunnels as well.

you can have two prime habitats but if they are separated by an obstacle such as the transcanada - it rules out their collective utility to the animals by a significant degree.

Make no mistake, predators will use these obstacles and choke points to their advantage just as us hunters do. I imagine an elk herd has to cross a veritable gauntlet of predators to get from one end of the park to another. Natural boundaries are evolved around, but if there's a new infrastructure installation every other year, that's going to present more problems.

Even the fences themselves, while perhaps keeping animals off the highways, certainly must create one hell of a hunting feature for a pack of wolves. I've personally witnessed a pack of wolves corral an elk herd against a riverbank and run them down - awesome sight - but I'm positive highways, fences and the like are used the same way by predators.

[Ourea]

This has been discussed endless times on HBC.
And no disrespect to you BearSupreme and not trying to derail your thread.

Firstly, you can cross 'over hunting' off your list.
Second, liberal seasons/poor regulation is none factor as well.
There is endless science to support this debate.
Hunting and regulations are not drivers for wildlife numbers decreasing in this province.

Why are some non hunted species declining at the same rate as hunted species?
A lot of MU's have no mule deer doe season yet their numbers have imploded in most areas.
Again, cross hunting and regulation off your list.

The apparent increase in some preds is obvious but the 'why' truly can't be answered.

Habitat challenges, erosion of winter range, fragmentation, that's a given.

The lack of investment in wildlife in this province is pathetic. It is one of our greatest resources yet there is no funding and no plan to address the current issues plaguing it let alone the future. Dollars need to be dedicated into defining and understanding the drivers that currently impact wildlife numbers.

Simply put....no dollars=no science and research=no true understanding=no solution.
Even with solutions, without sustainable funding for said solutions, it will fix nothing.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch, we debate in the minutiae about the same topics over and over and over again..... that will fix nothing, that's been proven over decades. (A shortening of six point elk seasons won't solve decreasing cows numbers)

To sustain and rebuild wildlife with a funded plan should be the focus and discussion.
Again, sorry to kinda derail your thread but these debates have been going on for years on this site......and decades within the hunting community.

[mpotzold]

From: the 2015 thread "The good old days"
Moved to BC from Ontario in ’65 when I was a teen. Bought my first rifle at Charlie Lake gun store from Foxy Wolf. It was a 30/30 Win Lever. Hunted in Ont. since 12-first with a bow & then a 12 gauge.
Serious hunting started after meeting LT (LOVER 308 ) at SFU in ’67. Hunted with 3 other SFU guys. Hunting was way more important than classes!

For deer- initially it was the Birkenhead Lake /D’Arcy area followed by Empire/ Gang /Big Creek area. The seasons were much longer & one could shoot 3 deer of any sex if I recall.
Almost all of our hunting was done by foot. The Trapper Nelson pack came in handy for the big deer & the smaller ones I would sometimes carry whole over my shoulders.
By Empire it seems like there were more deer than cattle. Some of the hunter’s campsites had many deer hanging.
We were never skunked.

For moose-mostly in the Nation Lakes to Uslika Lake area. In the 90’s we also hunted in the Big Creek area.
On our way up to Germansen we would see many moose cow/calf in the swampy areas. (I have never or will ever shoot a cow or calf moose). Until about 20 years ago we always got our moose within a day or 2 in the Germansen area. We were only after 1 moose per trip in general. We would share it equally.

The wolves were everywhere. Could hear the packs communicating every night sometimes in the middle of the day.
The cow/calf would have been easy pickings but the bulls- you had to work for it. There were plenty of moose until that dreaded Omineca model that was introduced in the 80’s followed by the indiscriminate year round moose slaughter & overpopulation of bears.Surprised there are any moose left in the area!

On our last 4 day hunt north of Germansen(6+years ago) we saw only one set of fresh moose tracks(a cow & a calf) –that’s it! It was a moose track soup trip!

Remember the days of red plaid shirts & blue jeans. Camo was unheard of except in the military.

Still remember driving up the highway & seeing hunters displaying their kills. LT & I shot 2 moose one year near Nation & took them to Vancouver in my VW beetle.