Newspaper Article - Aaron Blanchard's Perspective on the Colockum Elk Herd

[bobcat]

This article is from three years ago. I thought some on the forum may not have seen it, and those who have, might want to read it again.

Hunter, state at odds over elk herd's health

Published: July 3, 2010

BY SCOTT SANDSBERRY, YAKIMA HERALD-REPUBLIC

ELLENSBURG -- Aaron Blanchard describes himself as "an elk nerd."

And he believes the Colockum herd is in trouble.

As a boy, Blanchard tagged along on his father's hunting trips until he was old enough to carry his own rifle. He shot his first elk at 13. He still visits winter elk-feeding sites and often hikes into the high country in search of elk, even at those times of year when binoculars are all he'll be pointing.

"I just love everything about elk," says Blanchard, 29, an Army second lieutenant who served two tours in Iraq with the Marines before getting his degree at Central Washington University. He is now in Army flight training at Fort Rucker, Ala.

It was during his CWU stint that Blanchard -- a Selah native who hadn't hunted in the Colockum until then -- began hunting in the area. Over the four years leading up to his 2009 graduation, he says, "I'd notice every year there was a marked decrease in how many branch bulls I was seeing."

So Blanchard started reading game management plans and game reports and attending the occasional Washington Fish and Wildlife Commission meeting. And when he was assigned a paper in a research methods class -- a required course in his criminal justice major -- he decided to do it on the status of the Colockum elk herd.

As Blanchard went through his research, he came to some conclusions he knows wouldn't be welcomed by most of the hunting public: Either curtail the current hunting in the Colockum game-management units, he wrote, or face what he sees as the continuing demise of the herd itself.

"Unfortunately if nothing is done to change the current trend," he wrote, "the Colockum elk herd will only live on in the stories and tales of the men who hunted them to extinction."

Not surprisingly, officials at the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife don't agree with his conclusions.

Game division manager Dave Ware's return letter referenced that recent reductions to antlerless harvest and the current regulation that in the Colockum allows the taking only of "true spike" bulls (those with no branching on either of the two antler spikes) has helped bring the herd's numbers to slightly above the management objective of 4,500 elk.

"This is total spin," Blanchard said, "to make it sound like they are doing well."

Blanchard's contention is that while the Colockum herd total numbers are up, its bull-to-cow ratio (four bulls to every 100 cows) is "about five times below what it should be," and that the number of cows raising calves to maturity each year (roughly 20 out of 100) is woefully low.

Yakima-based state wildlife biologist Jeff Bernatowicz, from whose herd surveys and game reports Blanchard culled much of his statistics, contends Blanchard "was misreading" some of the research.

"A lot of the figures were somewhat accurate in terms of the number of bulls to cows, in comparing the two differences in the ratios between the two herds (the Colockum and the Yakima elk herd's sub-herd to the west, from the Taneum to the Little Naches).

"The (young bull) recruitment is fairly low in the Colockum. However, he then makes the jump about the Colockum herd going extinct," Bernatowicz said with a chuckle. "That's not very likely to happen."

"We've had way lower (bull ratios) in the past," says Ted Clausing, the WDFW's regional wildlife program manager. "The ratios we have now are nowhere near low enough to where the herd would cease to exist. In fact, the population has increased in the last couple of years."

Blanchard says he believes the true-spike regulation is "a step in the right direction," but he believes the wildlife department needs to go even further to save the Colockum herd.

Read more here: http://www.tri-cityherald.com/2010/07/03/1082677/hunter-state-at-odds-over-elk.html#storylink=cpy

[mrmoskillz]

Thanks for sharing Bobcat I hadn't seen that one yet.

[firefighter4607]

 
He was very eager to help out that herd.

[lokidog]

Maybe the state can honor him by actually saving the Colockum herd??  They do all kinds of things to honor lesser individuals, imo.

[HUNTINCOUPLE]

 

[sven]

 

[Bob33]

 Thanks for posting. Nice to read of his passion.

[Special T]

We definitely lost a passionate advocate. 

[Curly]

Maybe the state can honor him by actually saving the Colockum herd??  They do all kinds of things to honor lesser individuals, imo.

 

[coachcw]

He was definentlly a passionate man !