Yellowstone elk condition

[GOWYO]

Hello, all I thought everybody would find this interesting and/or maddening
I got this from the US F&WS grey wolf recovery website

Research

Yellowstone National Park continues with their annual late winter wolf predation study for the month of March. Volunteers are following wolf packs in the northern range daily to determine prey selection and kill rates. Smith said it appears to be a very strange year. Elk are in horrible condition and they are starting to see lots of winter-kill elk. Wolf kills rates appear near normal but the bone marrow condition of wolf-killed elk appear near starvation levels. The Park has normal snow depth but has had freezing thawing conditions that hardened snow making it tough for the wind to blow it off ridges or for elk to dig through it.

http://westerngraywolf.fws.gov/wk03102006.htm

 

[sheepeater]

Weird the Park Service has found away to blame the inpending population crash on a mysterious event. Could it be that the average age of the elk in the park are candidates for Geritol,NO, couldnt be that. Could it be that their has been a 3% calf survival rate, no couldnt be that. Could it be that the range condition is absolutely horrible and has been for years, no couldnt be that. Could it be an illegal introduction of a non-native large predator, nah. It has to be something they dont understand, Yeah right. Just the beginning of the end, they are looking for excuses.

 

[huntindude]

Sheepeater,
Well said, it's funny how many people don't know that they are a non native species. it's like introducing a African Fish Eagle in place of a Dodo Bird.

 

[Bikes]

I thought wolves were native to North America???

 

[huntindude]

The Grey Wolf is native to the lower 48 but the ones that were planted around Yellowstone are the larger Canadian Wolf. when this was going on I asked one of the dorks working on the project why they would do this and he said " because the prey they need to survive on is bigger than what the Grey wolf had to survive on" I sure didn't know the game evolved to a much larger size in the last 100 years did you? what a joke.

 

[wideone]

It is a joke... All the elk are being killed, and I keep scooping up sheds in areas where elk from the park have migrated to. I suck at math, but I just dont understand how year after year I keep doing well. And, how this last fall was one of the best hunting years in the last decade.. More, and larger bulls harvested in N.W. Wyoming in '05.. Damn wolves..

 

[huntindude]

So less elk means better hunting? ever think last years good hunting was weather related and now there's even less elk? so the '06 season should be fantastic? I mean with less elk why not? yeahhhh, OK.

 

[sheepeater]

Wildone has a point, their has been some gagger bulls killed the last couple of years due to lack of competition, and the average age of the bulls is getting older and older allowing them to get bigger. But that is about to end, we are on a slippery slope. There is a reason that we are losing the late hunts up here. Its not all a bad thing though the rangeland will and is starting to improve, providing more nutrients to the elk that are left, therefore condition of the elk should start to improve in the next 10 years, lots of habitat up there for only 1500 elk in the Northern herd. Still isnt going to be pretty for the next few years though.