clownpuncher said:
"if you were a predator (i.e. bear, mountain lion, wolf, coyote, etc.) where is the one place that you would hang out religiously for an easy meal come migration time? "
How close you are clownpuncher, in some locations, hunters have done exactly what you described. But..... humans are as creative as wild predators.
When I-70 was built through Sevier County in Utah, they built underpasses tunnels along about 25 miles, from Salina south to Joseph. We had a large mule deer population that bedded on the mountain, above the Freeway and feed, during the evening/night, below the Freeway, in the alfalfa feeds in the valley.
The underpasses were somewhat successful, and once deer located the underpasses they stopped breaching the Freeway fences and getting killed by vehicles. Eventually, what deer were left, started using the underpasses. The minute a few of the hunters in the area learned that the deer were migrating, morning and evening, thru the underpasses, this is what happened.
During the hunting season, from August thru the end of October, they would slip down to the tunnels around midnight, after the deer had moved off the mountain, and into the hay fields, and hang a dozen or two balloons, on strings, so the balloons were hanging about 3 feet off the floor of the tunnel. They would put the balloons in every tunnel but one. At the one, without the balloons, they would set up in the brush and sage 50 yards above the mouth of the tunnel. As the deer went to return to their bedding area, they would encounter floating balloons, moving in the morning breeze, inside the tunnel and move on to the next tunnel, until they came to the one that didn't have any balloons, at which time they were funneled directly and specifically into the weapons of the waiting hunters.
They eventually added radios or tape recorders to the balloons.
So..... the wild predators may load up on the over/underpasses, but so do some hunters.
I don't know if they have done anything about it down on the Pauns. but some hunters were patrolling the fence line on HIghway 89, killing bucks gathering alone the fences and the underpasses, when the fence was first installed. I've watched them do it. Even a half mile away, the bucks on the Pauns learned to bed down a half mile north of the fence/tunnels, to wait until dark to migrate, and hunters learned to hunt the P/J a few hundred yards back from the fence, in later years.
If they are going to do it, on I-80, I think the deer, elk and moose will eventually learn to use them and they are effective in keeping more big game animals alive and protect vehicles/drivers on the Freeway, however I believe there should be a buffer area, some distance back from the Freeway/Highway, that is closed to hunting, if we are going to force deer. elk, moose through a specific narrow corridor.
How you betting they'll include that part of the effort?
So many of our efforts to help preserver and propagate big game "get started" but no one has the balls or the foresight to plan out and adjust to the changes that take place as a result of the "getting started" effort, so the effort either makes it worse or it becomes a waste of investment and a new scientific study is reported as "That doesn't work." When in fact, it would have worked and worked well, if they would just "finish the job" and done more than just "build the over/underpass" and believed that is all there is to it, and left the job about one third complete.
And..... it's not just this issue, it's nearly every big game management issue effort that gets tried.
Such as......... transplanting, feeding, antler restriction, shorter seasons, primitive weapon rotations, split seasons, draw systems, point systems, habitat restoration, predator management, etc., etc. etc. etc. You name it, they "start it" and forget it, then call it a failure, then publish an article in every magazine, newspaper, scientific journal, etc. until the "half baked effort" becomes the truth and every solution suggested gets a haughty "we proved that doesn't work" response, and the natural resource continues to decline and to decline unnecessarily.
It don't happen this way on private property........ does it?
Does that mean I want to see the public land made private? Hell no. I want the public land to start get managed, with the same degree of commitment, that the private sector manages their land, for wildlife.
DC
