Originally Posted by
J_T
I'm not a biologist, but, when I do reach out to them with my concerns, what I hear is... the ratios are good, the harvest trend is static.
I sent this note along to Bugle M In earlier. Seems appropriate now. Again, I am not a biologist...
"In summary, my concern is…… somewhere between 5 and 10 years ago, we saw elk/deer populations decline. For a variety of reasons (urbanization, highway/railway kill, winter snow, high fences, interrupted winter range, whatever). And, we saw an increase in predators. All predators. With ungulate populations trending down, and Government only managing by ratios (Bulls/bucks to cows/does and cow/doe to calve/fawn) we weren’t paying attention to the actual population decline.
And (my assumption/theory) predators, increasing in number, took the ungulate population so low, it is and will, have a hard time to recover.
When Government manage by ratios, they look at harvest numbers of bulls and bucks. When the bull/buck harvest goes down, Government assume a population decline. But, they don’t pay attention to how long (hunter days) those harvests took. Every good hunter, is going to work harder and harder, to get his kill. So we prop up the Government theory that population numbers are ok, because they equate harvest to population and operate on the basis of ratios. Every committed elk or deer hunter knows, it is not the same out there as it used to be."