LAST EDITED ON Dec-14-11 AT 04:20PM (MST)[p]Ok, I guess nobody else felt inclined to chime in...perhaps this post will provide the incentive for some of you to do so
I will begin with a few past experiences:
Tgunner will likely remember this one...a friend and colleague of ours had a mule deer hunter of extremely limited mobility, and had vision in only one eye, and our friend did very well to provide this gentleman a golden opportunity on a buck of a lifetime (220+ class trash buck); the hunter was doing his best to settle in for a shot when a NMGF survey helicopter pops out of the canyon behind and comes ripping over the top of the whole deal...BUGGERED! When the operating manager/outfitter contacted RJ K. following the incident, the reaction was typical of Game & Fish: a lot of backpeddling and rhetoric, along with feeble attempts at justifying their direct violation of their agreed upon flight scheduling over private land
A few years back, I had just begun a stalk (in a place you and I know very well, NMBighorn) on a monstrous typical (lets just say that his estimated score didn't start with the number 1), that I'd watched make his day bed in a stand of spruce with several other good bucks. Conditions were excellent. NMGF was just finishing a sheep capture a couple miles off; I had seen them haul what must have been their last string of ewes down to the ground transport site just before I went after the deer. Well, as I'm closing in on what I felt was a brilliant opportunity on this cranker of crankers, here come that dang chopper flying down the ridge the bucks and I were on...the helicopter proceeded to comb heavily timbered ridges and basins in a back and forth fashion all the way down the mountain...BUGGERED! I later came to find out that they'd figured they might as well try and scare up some deer to look at while they still had fuel to burn...and no, they didn't see even ONE buck in the group I was stalking
As mentioned before, this year's incident occurred during the September MZ deer hunt. I wasn't hunting, but obviously a good many others were. My Honey and I were walking through the timber to go wet some flies in the creek in the late AM, when here come the dang survey chopper...them guys were flying a very tight grid just off the top of the canopy (the rotor wash was palpable as they flew overhead)in an obvious attempt at driving elk into clearings where they could be 'accurately' counted. We had elk buggering through the thick stuff all around us, literally running back and forth in their efforts to get away from the damned thing. ONE young cow ended up out in the open where she'd be visible to the surveyors. How many elk they missed, and how many they 'succeeded' in counting, who the hell knows...the video I shot was when we'd made it to a decent clearing and could document the helicopter making its (seemingly futile) efforts at 'pushing' timber. Clownville!
A different sort of tale: a few years ago, I drew an archery antelope tag for a small conglomerate of former ANT units in the NW portion of the state (3,5,10 if I remember correctly), for which there were a grand total of 10 tags allocated. Tagholders were notified prior to the season that the best piece of country (Fence Lake unit) had been closed for the hunt, due to low population numbers based on a flight survey. An outfitter I know flew the unit in the weeks before the season began and counted in excess of 300 goats, mostly bunched up in area that according to G&F 'doesn't hold antelope'. He advised the Dept. of his findings. He was told that he MUST have miscounted, and that where he'd claimed to have seen the concentration of animals is a 'dead zone' for pronghorn, which they subsequently never fly...Clownville!
NMGF did not have the funding to even conduct aerial Rocky surveys this past summer because they had exhausted their annual budget in the Desert...myself and my colleagues made a concerted effort to provide very detailed, catalogued survey of the Rocky units, which were provided to G&F. They sure did express a lot of interest in obtaining this information, but have since shown little, if any, gratitude for the well documented results provided them
In my experience in dealing with many of them, the biologists are ALWAYS 'right', even when they don't have any inkling as to what it is they are pontificating about
As far as my personal OPINION goes regarding the fall surveys, well, I think it is incredibly misguided on biological principle. I do not think that counting elk during the rut makes any sense whatsoever. It is a very dynamic period, with a lot of elk movement in general, and bulls and cows 'swapping' groups continually...how can one be sure that at least SOME of the elk counted yesterday aren't the same individuals counted today? Never mind that many of those animals never clear the thick timber to offer themselves up for easy counting, despite the savvy surveyors intrusive 'flushing' techniques
I disagree that the rut is the only time big bulls are visible, my (and many others) experience tells me that an ideal time to survey elk and deer numbers is mid-late summer: the bulls and bucks are bachelored up and relatively easy to observe, the cows/calves are in their large nursery groups and generally quite obvious from the air...doe/fawn mule deer are also relatively visible during this time. Along my way of thinking, the second count would be conducted in early winter, soon after the majority populations have hit the winter range and are still in good condition, the bucks and bulls are still packin' their bone, and are again relatively visible. Such a method would also largely avoid the significant margin for error of 'counting' interim harvested animals, as ElkTrout points out
From a business perspective, does it make much sense for an entity to potentially negatively affect the earnest and invested endeavors of those who are largely funding said entity's operations? To me it does not...Buggered by Clownville!
I'm not here to school anybody, the point of this thread is to see what others' thoughts/observations are concerning the practice of surveying big game populations during the fall hunting period, and ALL of your input is most welcome
I still can't manage to drop the audio from my footage, and have tried emailing it to a couple people whom have offered to help, but can't even seem to do that successfully (file too large)...I am a retro-grouchy techno-caveman, and none of this new fangled technology makes any sense to me. Everytime I mess with it, I run the risk of arriving at the point of hurling this dang 'magic box' out the window!
anyway, Cheers and Thanks
**edit--sorry, had to clear it up some...too much typing for this hillbilly
