Colville Antelope

[quadrafire]

The biggest issue we have is a lack of habitat. Much of what would have been prime habitat 100 years ago, has been converted to agricultural uses and/or cattle range. I'd be amazed if Washington ever has hunt-able populations of antelope. They tried establishing antelope populations several decades ago and it didn't work, so I'm not sure why it would work now, with even less habitat than what would have been available back then.

There are A LOT of them down the Madison river area in MT on Agricultural land and cattle range. So I think we have suitable habitat........If we could keep bullets out of them for a while

[bobcat]

I was thinking of the agricultural area around Moses Lake. Not really suitable for antelope. And where there are cattle there are fences, which antelope don't do well with.

But it sure will be interesting to see how much they spread. Hopefully I live long enough to see the first hunting season for antelope in Washington.

[Bob33]

I think we will see a hunting season within five years but it will be extremely limited: something like five permits a year.

[PolarBear]

But take 30 years to get drawn.

[Bob33]

This is the history of Washington moose hunting. Reading this, I can only imagine how hard it must have been to fit all those moose in vans to be driven around and released.

Washington's moose population has been slowly growing since the first confirmed moose sighting was made in Pend Oreille County in the early '50's. A study conducted in the early '70's indicated a population of about 60 moose. The first moose hunting season in Washington was in 1977 with three permits in the Selkirk unit of Pend Oreille County. Increased moose sightings throughout the area and beyond suggested a growing population. In 1987 one moose hunting permit was allowed in the Mt. Spokane unit. By 1998 there was a total of 43 permits among five units, and by 2006 there were 100 permits over 10 units.

[jdb]

I'd love for moose to make it to yakima!

[KFhunter]

Hmm... what's faster- an antelope or a wolf?

One on one, it's not close.  A pronghorn is the fastest North American animal and one of the fastest in the world. Dealing with a pack would be another issue.

Antelope do well in wolf country, wolves don't even bother with adults.  The pack hunting tendencies of wolves ensure fawn survival, might stumble on a few here and there but the bulk of fawns are never found.  Coyote's are the bane of Antelope, they range around in singles and pairs covering much more country much more thoroughly killing fawns.  Since wolves tend to drive out coyotes this is a huge boon for Antelope. 

Wolves are bad in a lot of ways, but they're very beneficial to Antelope.

[WARHORSE]

Seems the colvilles have been leaps and bounds ahead of our state with managing forest and wildlife!! I think its great! Wish the state would take a look at what they are doing and take some notes!

[bobcat]

Maybe wolves will be beneficial for mule deer too- I hear the wolves have been killing a lot of cougars. 

[Bango skank]

Maybe wolves will be beneficial for mule deer too- I hear the wolves have been killing a lot of cougars. 

Now youre dreaming

[KFhunter]

Maybe wolves will be beneficial for mule deer too- I hear the wolves have been killing a lot of cougars. 

I'm not sure if your being facetious, but I did some searching to support my claim.

http://www.esajournals.org/doi/abs/10.1890/07-0193.1

[bobcat]

Well, I heard the wolves ARE killing a lot of cougars. Will it benefit mule deer? Maybe. Maybe not.

[mfswallace]

"There is enough native habitat on the plateau to support them," said Whitney. "We chose to move forward with the reintroduction at this time since a primary goal of the wildlife program is to restore native and desired non-native species to the Colville Reservation. Pronghorn are a native species to the homelands of our people. Since they have been extirpated from Wash., our tribal members have had to go to other states in order to utilize these animals for subsistence."

Probably falls under the non-native species clause.  Not 100% sure what the "usual and accustomed" range of the tribes that now call the Colville Reservation home actually were, but it is conceivable that some of them used to hunt pronghorn back in the day on those lands.

 

[Gringo31]

The 99 pronghorns that were released in 2011 are doing very well. The population has more than doubled.

Don't think this is even close to accurate.

[James]

I would love to have a sustainable pronghorn population (and hopefully hunting season) in Washington, but before trying to reestablish them were any ecological studies performed? Our ungulates herds are not exactly in the best of shape, I would hate for this to have an impact on our already hurting mule deer or other animals.

We humans have a history of causing problems with our animal transplants...