For one I never said anything about reducing ranching so that we can hunt more, in fact, if you go back and read what wrote, you'll see that I said that the state has the potential to harbor a larger elk herd than what it currently holds without drastic impacts to grazing allotments.
As for wintering elk habits - yes they have been known to depredation on hay stacks, but for the most part the state compensates for those losses through incentive tags or fencing efforts to keep elk off hay stacks and even pivots. Many ranchers opt for the incentive tags as they can sell them for thousands a piece, and make more of a profit off the tags than they could on the hay....go figure. Since most of the current elk depredation issues involve only a minute fraction of the state's elk population, it is therefore evident that state's elk populations are not sustained or grown on the dependency for hay. In fact, the majority of elk feed on winter fat, native grasses, shrubs, aspen bark, you name they'll eat it. Elk, along with antelope, unlike deer, are purely survivors and will go where they have to to find food, and will eat nearly any type of vegetation to get through the winter. Deer don't...they go to the exact same places (transition and winter ranges) every year, whether it's in existence or not - meaning, they'll head there and stay there regardless of the habitat condition, even if it was toasted as a result of fire and food is scarce. And if the winter is bad enough, they'll parish rather than move elsewhere to find forage and survive the winter.
Hence the proposal to increase deer tag quotas...take the area six herd for example - the deer numbers bombed after the Dunphy Hills fire back in the late 1990's which is critical winter range. That population has remained relatively unchanged, if not a descending trend, as well as the number of tags that have been issued since the initial population plummet, and we have experienced relatively normal to hard winters since the event. Consequently the winters have force the deer to migrate to their transition and winter ranges each year which have a limited carrying capacity. Then we experienced the 2010-2011 wet and mild and 2011-2012 mild winters which have allowed that population to grow, but if we experience a harsh winter without trimming back the herd before going into winter, the results could be more drastic than just increasing tags. Especially since the south Tuscarora Range was toasted again this past fall. Other areas maybe experiencing transition and winter range improvements, but those populations haven't had to rely on them because of the winter conditions.
Those ARE the facts, and be my guest to break my argument.
DCMHUNTER - you're absolutely right, the carrying capacities of each area out weight the current numbers....only as long as we have winters like we have had over the past couple years. You should take a look at an article in the Eastman's hunting journal - Mule Deer Special. It's a great read on why we will likely never experience the populations of the 50's and 80's again.