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One of the things that has impacted the number of elk permits, Clausing said, was the decision about six years ago — following several years of increasing elk damage on private land — to cull the Yakima herd from roughly 11,500 animals to 9,500.“When you get the principal down to, now, 9,500, you’re not producing as many calves, so you can’t be killing as many cows or bulls,” Clausing said. Hunting success is likely to become even more difficult to achieve in this region, he said, with the game department proposing “a fairly major reduction in the antlerless (cow) harvest in the 2010 season.”