Counting Elk And Distorting/Withholding Information
January 13, 2011
It absolutely blows my mind that any half-brained, uneducated person couldn’t look at the elk situation in Northern Yellowstone and easily determine that one thing and one thing only is the major attribute in a disappearing elk herd – wolves. What is so difficult? On the same year that wolves were dumped into Yellowstone, there was an estimated 19,000 elk. Today? Around 4,500.
Not much has changed around the area where the Northern Yellowstone elk herd hangs out. There’s more bears that munch on elk and there is little debate about that fact. There’s been some severe winters, but haven’t there always been? There’s been some dry summers, but haven’t there always been? There’s a bunch of coyotes, but haven’t there always been? There’s a bunch of wolves, but haven’t there always been? Oh, wait back up. No, there hasn’t always been a bunch of wolves.
Wolves are a pet project of some and those some will say and do most anything to enable the further destruction of wildlife systems in order to protect wolves. Sadly, it’s very much like the parent who lies and distorts facts in order to protect and cover for their drug-addicted children.
Unfortunately, the citizens of the Greater Yellowstone Area were treated to a media event that included the announcement that elk numbers in the northern zone continue to shrink. Matthew Brown, writing for the Associated Press, informed his readers that the “Famous Yellowstone elk herd suffer[ed] decline.” That decline, he writes, was attributed “mainly to predators and hunters.”
Numbers of elk are not an indication of the health of a herd or what can be expected of that herd into the future. Doug Smith, a Yellowstone Park Service biologist, told Brown that, “a smaller herd is healthier in some ways because it gives the animals room to thrive.”
In addition, according to Brown’s reporting, Smith said, “there was no reason to suspect a continued decline”.
Neither one of those statements can stand on its own merits as being factual. Readers have no way of knowing if they are reading incomplete information, meaning the reporter failed to present pertinent facts offered by Doug Smith or whether Smith withheld facts to begin with. Elk studies 101.2.1 tells anyone who opened the text book, that the canary in the coal mine for elk health is the age structure of a herd.
Consider, if you will, an article found in the Bozeman Chronicle, dated December 16, 2005, when discussion surrounded the shrinking size of the Northern Yellowstone Elk herd. In this article, Tom Lemke, a biologist with the Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks Department was sharing information about not only the shrinking size of the herd but the age structure as well.
The northern Yellowstone National Park elk herd isn’t just getting smaller, it’s getting a lot older, too.
“The northern herd is fast becoming a geriatric elk population,” said Tom Lemke, a biologist here for the Montana Department of Fish, Wildlife and Parks.
The average age of elk harvested during last winter’s late hunt at Gardiner hit a record high: 8.2 years for cows and 9.1 years for bulls.
Ten years ago, the average was 6.2 years and 5.9 years, respectively.
Statewide, the average elk is 4 or 5 years old.
Lemke considered at that time the age structure, which showed half of the elk herd to be over the age of 9 years. This advancement of age within the herd, Lemke said, is due to an elk calf recruitment ratio of between 12 and 14 per 100 cows. That’s so low that it makes it very difficult to recover shrinking elk herds.
Hunter harvest can alter the age structure of a herd if proper management and harvest criteria isn’t implemented to control that. However a calf to cow ration this low is the result of simply not enough new born elk living long enough to replace the old elk that die off or are killed.
In 2005, if Lemke tells people that essentially the health of the Northern Yellowstone herd is “geriatric” and calf recruitment at near non sustainable levels, then how can Doug Smith make a broad claim that smaller elk herds are healthier? He can’t.
Even more troubling is the fact that Smith also states, according to the news article, that “there is no reason to suspect a continued decline.” In 2005 the Northern Yellowstone elk herd numbered around 9,500. As we have learned since then, the herd continues to shrink to today’s estimate of 4,635 elk. Isn’t it fair to conclude that nothing has changed in regards to the age structure, at least not substantially enough to stabilize or increase elk populations?
Even with proof from biologist Lemke, yanking teeth out of harvested elk for nine years, that the age structure of elk in Yellowstone was skewed, Doug Smith laid claim that the reduction of elk numbers was due to climate and harvest numbers.
“Climate and harvest rate are justified explanations for most of the elk decline,” said the study by Doug Smith and Daniel Stabler, of Yellowstone’s Center for Resources, and John Vucetich, of Michigan Tech University.
We are told by these same scientists that severe winters more quickly kill very young and very old elk. Are we to believe that severe winters can skew an elk age structure to the extreme as discovered by Lemke over a prolong period of time? Certainly Mr. Lemke didn’t allude to any such notion. So, what about hunter harvest? I would suppose that if the fish and game departments were allowing for the over kill of calves and too many elk in the young and prime, it would create a “geriatric” elk population over time. Has that been occurring?
After 2005, hunter harvest was substantially reduced, enough so that Lemke said results would show up in the future.
If hunting was a major factor in the herd’s size, there should be changes coming in the age structure and size of the herd, Lemke said.
As I’ve already pointed out, herd size has continued to shrink and there is little or nothing to indicate the age structure has improved.
The problems being presented here are multiple. The media are pumping the public full of information which is neither factual nor complete. Whether this is due to poor reporting or intentional misleading, that’s for someone else to investigate. I have my theories. What is unfortunate is that the taxpayers are being told that it is good that the elk herd in Yellowstone has shrunk 70%, that the herd is healthier at that size and that there is no reason to believe the herd will shrink any further. How much longer do we wait?
There will always be disagreements among scientists about theories and methods but this goes beyond that I believe. The people deserve better than what they are getting. Some have wondered if many of these actions are criminal in nature.
*Update* 3:15 p.m. January 13, 2010 – The National Park Service (Northern Yellowstone Cooperative Wildlife Working Group) issued a press release concerning the Northern Yellowstone elk herd decline.
As pertains to this article, the NPS information further clarifies certain information as follows:
The number of permits issued for the antlerless Gardiner Late Elk Hunt declined from 1,102 in 2005 to just 100 permits during the 2006-2010 seasons. The late season hunt was eliminated altogether for 2011.
So, essentially hunting harvest of these elk all but disappeared completely. In 2005 when Doug Smith claimed the reductions were due to hunting and climate, biologist Tom Lemke claimed that if Smith’s theory was correct, there would be changes in the elk population and age structure. That did not occur.
The number of grizzly bears seen on the northern range during elk calving season has decreased slightly in recent years.
In addition, if grizzly predation on elk calves has eased, why haven’t numbers increased, even if slightly or age structure changed.
Biologists expect the reduction in the number of wolves and the elimination of the late season hunt will result in some increase in the elk population.
Isn’t this a repeat of the mantra Doug Smith has been spreading? It’s also a bit contrary to claims already made about what is to blame for elk population reductions. In 2005, when the hunting pressure was eased and has continued to shrink for the past 5 years, Smith claimed that it was too much hunting and poor climate conditions that was affecting the elk herd. After 5 years and no changes, why are we to now, once again, believe that “some increase” will occur? Also, Smith concluded in 2005 that it was climate, drought specifically, along with hunting harvest that his research could attribute to elk losses. Why, then, would a slight reduction in the number of wolves have any affect on the elk population? If the wolves, as he claimed, had such insignificant effect in reducing numbers, why would they have any effect in increasing them?
Tom Remington
http://mainehuntingtoday.com/bbb/2011/01/13/counting-elk-and-distortingwithholding-information/
