Please send the below message to the wildlife commission. Things need to happen as soon as possible. We are on a time crunch so we need max participation. The Colockum elk herd needs you. So please carefully read what's below. If you agree then please send it. If not then don't. If there's something you'd like to change in it then let me know and I'll change it. So please for the sake of the elk herd send it to the commission. Thank you for your support.
wildthing@dfw.wa.gov Dear Wildlife Commission,
My name is:
My email address is:
I agree with the following letter that Mr. Aaron Blanchard has typed up. This needs to happen as soon as possible not later, as later will be too late for the Colockum elk herd. I am sending this to you to let you know that I support a Permit only system for the Colockum (GMU's 328 and 329) instead of the proposed "true spike" rule.
Dear Wildlife Commission,
My name is Aaron Blanchard and I represent a group known as Washington Sportsmen. Recently I attended the meeting that was held in Ellensburg, WA. First of all I would like to thank you for the time I was allowed to speak and I again thank you for taking the time to read this. The following are the facts of the situation. It is also exactly what I said at the meeting in Ellensburg. All of the following facts and statistics are from your website. They have been taken from harvest reports, game trend reports and also the studies done for the elk herd plans. I was also asked a question that I should have answered more thoroughly. At the end is the response to that question.
In the past 5 years the branch bull population in the Colockum has been absolutely decimated. Currently the branch bull to cow ratio is 5:100. In 2002 there were 391 branch bulls in the Colockum and as of 2007 there are only 116 branch bulls left. This is a decline of 70%. LET ME REITERATE THAT. That is a decline of 70%. That is a decline of 14% a year. If this trend continues by 2011 there wont be any branch bulls left in the Colockum.
You need to act now, now 3 years from now. You need to go to permit only now. The elk need a stimulus package worse than our country does. There are various reasons why the branch bull population has been decimated. They are poaching, tribal-hunting, and far too much road access. Some of these are out of your hands and others will take alot of time and resources to change. Time that the Colockum elk do not have. You need to control what you can which is spike recruitment. You have the power to make things happen now which is what you need to do.
The main problem with the Colockum elk herd is spike recruitment. In the Colockum the average harvest is 135 per GMU. In the Yakima herd the average spike harvest per GMU is only 57. The Colockum has a spike harvest average per GMU of almost 3 times that of the Yakima GMUs. 85% of all yearling bulls in the Colockum are killed every year. Only 15% of yearling bulls in the Colockum survive their first two years. In 2005 only 46 spikes made it through the hunting season in the entire Colockum.
The best course of action is to go to Permit Only now, not later. Do what is right even if it is unpopular. Sometimes the right choice isn't the popular choice. Often the popular opinion isn't always an ethical one. In any case during the surveys over the past year the public favored permit only over the "True Spike" proposition. So why did you not go to permit only like the public wanted? For those that oppose this what many people don't realize is that every year in the Colockum 300 or more spikes are harvested by hunters. If it were permit only this would mean 300 more spikes would survive to become branch antlered bulls every year. With special permit success rates being about 50% this would mean you could give out 600 branch bull permits in the Colockum every year instead of the 6 that were given out last year.
For the sake of the elk in the Colockum please do the right thing. True Spike might have been a good idea ten years ago but right now the True Spike concept would be too little and too late.
I was asked this question at the end of my speech. "Would I support the closure of all elk hunting in the Colockum for one year." My answer was a definate yes. But under four conditions.
1.) It's closed to everyone for that year. Licensed-Hunters, Master-Hunters, and Tribal-Hunters.
The courts have ruled that state regulation of tribal exercise of off-reservation hunting rights on open and unclaimed land is preempted by the Stevens Treaties, except where state regulation is necessary for conservation purposes While the Boldt Decision of February 12, 1974 did grant the tribes 50% of all the fish harvest it did reserve the state's right to
The courts have ruled that state regulation of tribal exercise of off-reservation hunting rights on open and unclaimed land is preempted by the Stevens Treaties, except where state regulation is necessary for conservation purposes 2.) After a year when you do open it up it goes to permit only for at least three years in order to moniter how well the herd is doing. If it goes back to the status quo we will be in the same boat we are in right now.
3.) When it is permit only you issue far more permits than are currently issued. Without the massive amounts of spikes being harvested every year, you would have these spikes living to become branch bulls so you could afford to give out far more branch bull permits. I have submitted an example of just how many permits you could give out. I came up with the numbers by this method. I took
(Avg. # of spikes harvested in the Colockum 266.) And disributed those amongst the three user groups utilizing your distribution ratios.
(Modern would get 170 of the 266.) I then multiplied that number by the average special permit success rate.
(170 x 70%= 221) I then added the amount that is already given out to get my total of permits you could and should give out.
(221 + 9 = 230) So for example if it goes to permit only you could give out 230 branch bull permits instead of 9 and still grow the herd. Below are the numbers. Obviously this is just an example of how many numbers could be possible. This is obviously not the exact number that would be used and I'm sure you guys would set your own numbers.
CSP Current amount of bull permits given out.
SPIKE HARVEST Total Amount of Spikes killed in that unit that could have become branch bulls
RATIO % Percent of Animals that go to that user group/Number of animals entitled to that user group.
ADD Additional amount of special permits that would now be available.
TOTAL The new amount of special permits that would now be given out.
CSP SPIKE HARVEST RATIO% ADD. TOTAL
MODERN 9 266 64%170 221 230
MUZZLE 1 266 15%/40 59 60
BOW 4 266 21%/56 96 100
TOTAL 14 376 390
4.) After three years do a study to see if the Colockum elk herd can again be hunted using a general season now that road closures have had a chance to be implemented. The intent of the permit only is not to make the permit only a permanent change but only a temporary one in order to build the herd back up. And to give us time to create physical barriers to limit some of the road access that is available in GMU's 328 and 329.
With 390 branch permits given out and a success rate of 65% this would only lead to the harvest of 256 bull elk a year. Far short of the 300 plus spikes killed a year with the current seasons. Again thank you for your time. And I hope that you will listen to us and take our ideas into consideration. We are not doing this to promote some sort of trophy hunt. We are doing this so for the Colockum elk herd. We all want to see the Colockum elk herd thrive so that our children and our childrens children can enjoy the same type of hunting that we currently enjoy.
Respectfully Aaron Blanchard and
www.washingtonsportsmen.com