Home Forums Hunting & Shooting General Big Game Colorado Bear and Mtn Lion Study

Does anyone here have any good insight into this program beyond what the CPW has posted? As is often the case, many news reports are very emotionally based and lack facts and context. The CPW has made quite a bit of info available, but if anyone here has additional thoughts or insight I'd like to hear it.

My understanding is that the important aspects are that Mule Deer populations have been on a decline. The main lever the CPW has to pull that adjusts game numbers is hunting, and they have reduced that all they can in certain areas (99%). Now they need to look to other influences on the deer population. They do not fully understand the influence of bear and lions so they want to conduct a study. They have chosen two areas where they have significant data on deer populations so they can conduct a study and see the resulting impact on deer population.

"They do not fully understand...". They do not understand that lions kill, on average, one deer-per-lion-per-week?

There are between 3-5,000 lions in Colorado. At 5,000 lions, lions are killing about 250,000 deer per year in Colorado. Add in other highly efficient predators, such as Black Bears, Coyotes, Golden Eagles, etc., and the true numbers of deer lost to predation would be sobering.

In 1906-1907, predators were removed from the Kaibab Plateau, and the deer population exploded, from a 1905 estimate of 4,000 deer to a 1924 estimate of 100,000.

Predator control works.

"They do not fully understand...". The Colorado biologists understand all right, but they don't want to address this gorilla.

The lion problem is huge and 1 deer per week is on the light side based on recent studies. Suffice to say that our deer population would boom if lions were seriously controlled.

Every deer and elk tag should have a lion and bear tag included.

AS far as I have heard the studies are predicated on the mortality of collared deer .That being lion kill.So they want to find out of reducing lion population will in crease deer population.

Fr 20+ years the CPW has been looking at deer population decline.The biggest jump they have seen was when the number of deer licenses went to an all draw allocation. They are still trying to figure out the small fawn survival rate or conception rate in does.

Depredation is just another piece in the puzzle

Its a big piece of the puzzle. 2010 in Montana.

http://billingsgazette.com/lifestyl...9cf046b-2c47-539f-a267-972e72e570b6.html

Appreciate the inputs. Any additional studies are welcome.

If the depredation rates are known, why do the study the CPW proposes? Just make a decision on how many lions, bears and deer you want and adjust accordingly. My guess is they feel they need some solid numbers from within their range to make the case for significantly altering lion or bear numbers.

Only one way to find out.

Sure makes a huge difference in moose and wolf populations...

Have to keep the PETA types happy

IMO----the lions hunters are doing it wrong. Everyone wants a big male. I thinks that's wrong--it's the big males that kill the young lions that are kicked out by the mother. Even if they kill 2 or 3 in a year over their life it adds up. Everyone killed saves deer.

Plus they really bad mouth the guy who kills a female lion. Heck, those are the ones to kill IMO.

If they saw lions and bears as the vermin they are (by definition they compete with humans and do not offer equal value in return), then they'd let people get rid of them.

You understand it correctly. In essence, CPW is testing the concept of a predator pit. The predator pit idea is generally the scenario where there is a very small, isolated population in the presence of a predator population that will not allow enough young to live to breeding age. But this is usually in the context of a much smaller population than the deer numbers we have.

Secondly, mule deer populations in all the interior west began this decline in the early 1980's, and accelerated in the late 80's thru the late 90's. Limiting deer licenses here in Colorado helped the statewide population, and the deer population increased some. The drought that began 15 years ago is thought to have caused a decrease once again, but now that we have had a number of normal years (or as normal as it is going to get given the current weather/climate scenario), and deer populations have if anything decreased again.

By the mid 60's we had 1.1 million deer in the state. Today we have 450,000. Why the decline? 4-5 western states have done studies, with Colorado having a series of studies since the late 90's, and nobody has been able to come up with definitive answers about what is going on with muleys.

If you ask me......although no correlation has been established, the elk population boom has coincided with the deer declines--there is only so much habitat to go around and elk are winning.

And, here in the west we have been successful in suppressing fires in the winter and transition habitat over the last 75 years. Muleys are browsers and the browse is becoming decadent.

How many deer the average lion kills is not known very well. And can vary a LOT depending on the individual lion and habitat the lions live in. There is some evidence that some individual lions live on small game and other small critters (even frogs) and only occasionally kill big game.

We know bears and coyotes intentionally hunt fawns in the spring, and there has been lots of bear and coyote scat analyzed that demonstrate they are eating neonate fawns.

The lion quotas in Colorado have been tripled since the 80's, but that doesn't seem to have much effect on deer declines. There are some ideas being floated about new seasons for bears and CPW has increased the September bear tags a fair amount the last few years.

We need to learn how to be more successful killing bears and coyotes, thats for sure. Hound hunting seems to be doing a decent job keeping lions in check.

In other words, state wildlife management agencies have researched, study, messed with seasons/quotas for deer and predators, but nothing has helped muley populations in the interior west.

I think at this point the CPW has to try something new, and although this study has been a bit controversial (especially with my former wildlife professors at CSU!) I support what they are doing.

Casey

Most state courts--including Colorado--and some federal courts have said states are responsible for managing ALL wildlife in the state. The last thing we want is a big fuzzy brown eyed predator to become endangered. Or worse yet, to be seen by the general public to be farming popular game animals at the complete expense of predators. They both have a place.

Long time ago when the when the feds and the states decided to preserve wildlife, sport hunting offered to pay for the privilege of hunting with the understanding all wildlife would benefit.

Obviously more resources go towards popular game animals and I support that. But predators are no longer looked upon as being vermin, and treating them as such would lose support for sport hunting.

Without the non-hunting public's support, sport hunting would no longer exist.


Casey

I agree with you.


Casey

A complex issue for sure. Generally, predation only affects already stressed populations with predators being somewhat territorial and controlling their own numbers. There have been some incidences though in California of cats far exceeding their typical densities. Usually a 20 to 25% survival rate in the first year is enough to keep a big game population going and generate some trophies. With a stable population, mom and dad only need to successfully replace themselves in one instance, so a lot of kids die if they have an extended lifetime.

Predator numbers typically wax and wane behind prey populations. Extremely heavy winters (self explanatory) and drought years (no quality groceries going into winter) pretty much drive Oregon's deer numbers.

We've also seen a decline in mule deer as elk have increased leaving the timber and moving out into expansive desert realms. Likely competition for groceries with elk having a higher reach and a greater willingness to dig for grub in deeper snow.

We're still seeing deer declines in a couple units experiencing some very determined cat control over the last 5 years. I put most of the blame for that on a series of three below average precip years. This, however, is going to be a killer winter for south east Oregon, so I expect a further decline in bucks for next season's hunt.

With Cookie's relatively new interest in photography, she works some country that used to support a great population of bucks through about a 30-mile stretch of the valley. Used to be a to die for muzzleloader tag opportunity. Over the last 5 years, we've seen the productive reach reduced to about 7 miles, and I'd decline the tag if it was given to me.

While deer have near been studied to death, one needs to remember that correlation does not always reflect cause and effect.

This from a couple of studies in Utah:

"Smith's study on the LaSal Mountains provides a glimpse into the number of deer fawns coyotes take. He found that 73 percent of the fawns that were born in the LaSal Mountains during the two years the study was conducted lived less than one year.

Of the total number of fawns that died, coyotes accounted for 36 percent of the deaths.

The study Karpowitz did on the Book Cliffs yielded similar results. He found that 37 percent of the fawns that were born were dead before they were one year old.

Of the total number of fawns that died on the Book Cliffs, 44 percent were killed by coyotes."


In the early 2000's, the Colorado black bear population was estimated at 12,000. The 2015 estimate is 19,000;

I just found an article from 2015 that say's Colorado Parks & Wildlife estimates lion population to be between 5,000 and 9,000 lions, so, let's see, 9,000 lions, killing one-deer-per-week equals 468,000 deer per year.

Tell me again predators don't have much of an impact?

I think it could argued that it's less direct competition for groceries and more that we are growing more elk preferred groceries. Overall range condition is "better" now than in nearly forever and those ratings are highly driven by grass production.

Though I'd have to do a lot of digging to find it, but a graph a range prof at Utah State Univ liked to use was the estimated population numbers of domestic sheep and mule deer. They mirrored, but the deer land about 5-10yrs behind sheep numbers. Sheep groceries are deer groceries as I'm sure you're well aware.

There are a few historical facts I disagree with in these documents, but there is a lot of info here. Scroll down to the "Resources" and click on the documents. A lot of reading but it's good stuff.

http://cpw.state.co.us/muledeer

Surely its just a coincidence also, that the mule deer decline began about the same time fur values declined and coyote prices fell drastically, resulting in many country folk quitting coyote trapping for extra income.

I do not think it's a coincidence at all.

Look at the decline in Upland Birds since the 70's. Has anyone noticed the significant increase in hawks and owls in the last 30-40 years?

There are a lot of factors involved in the decline of mule deer (and upland birds), but, our PC university biology departments do not want to vocalize the effect predators have on prey. Instead, they will say 'habitat change/destruction' or building houses, or 'climate change' is responsible. Anything but predators.

Of course, no one but me will bring up the fact that Texas, where M Lions are treated as vermin, has not had any significant mule deer decline.

After 4 yrs of drought we did experience a slight fall in deer numbers in west Texas.

Essentially all our muley hunting is on private land where deer numbers are probably 10x higher than in the Big Bend where no hunting is allowed resulting in uncontrolled lion numbers, to the point that ranchers adjoining the park have problems keeping deer.

So, wouldnt you think that mule deer numbers would drastically increase in areas of mule deer habitat with no hunting pressure?

It's my understanding that back when hound hunters could bait and run bear in the Spring, we generally were able to take out around 600 bear a year. Seems that would surely help the fawn survival rate as well as the exploded bear population, but hey that wouldn't work because it makes to much common sense. Seems that keeping PETA members from squalling holds precedence over selling 600 more bear tags, reducing fawn mortality, and reducing the number of problem bears in the state that the DOW have to dispatch themselves.

The spring bear season was replaced with a September bear season--of course there is no hound or bait hunting. But if I remember my figures correctly, we are killing as many or more bears with the September season as the spring season was.

And it REALLY pizzed off the sponsors of the ballot initiative of the spring bear hunting ban when the September season was started a few years later..........

Casey

So why not bring back the Spring season and kill twice the number of bear, sell twice the number of tags, make a bunch of hound hunters happy and put the finishing touches on really pissing off PETA. I've talked to a number of people that think, at least on the western slope, that 3 times the number of bear tags should be issued, just to keep their numbers in check, and these people range from ranchers to wardens.

Here in California, the voters decided against hunting mountain lions. In the first 20 years I hunted in Northern California I didn't see any signs of mountain lions. However in the last 20 years I've seen all kinds of signs.

These threads always remind me of the late Paul Errington's observation: "I regard the outstanding source of error in appraisals of predator-prey relationships as confusion of the fact of predation with the effect of predation."

As I understand it, to roll back a ballot initiative requires another ballot initiative. To get one a) on the ballot and b) passed requires organization and funding. So the bear hunters would have to be as organized and as well-funded as the out-of-state interests that got the prior ballot initiative passed.

I don't see that happening.

I don't see it happening either.

At the same time we lost spring bear hunting, we lost leg-hold trapping of predators.

I was with the Colorado Bowhunters Association at the time, and was talking to a DOW employee about the upcoming vote. He told me we are going to lose the vote, and when I asked why he was so negative, he told me that less than 30% of the licensed hunters in Colorado were even registered to vote...

Let me repeat that- less than 30% of the licensed hunters in Colorado were even registered to vote.

The ballot initiative that banned spring bear hunting passed with 80% voting yes. In a democracy, that's as close as we will ever see to a unanimous vote. It also means that a lot of hunters in Colorado voted FOR the ban. Sport hunting groups were entirely unprepared for the ballot initiative and the CPW is prohibited from advocating any position--they can only state facts. That was especially true back then when the state legislature had a hard on for the CPW.

The initiative prohibited hunting for bears from Jan 1-Aug 31, and prohibited hunting with hounds and baiting for bears. I was surprised by how many people I knew who didn't approve of hunting with hounds or bait.

The argument was hunting during the spring when the cubs were little was endangering the cubs, and that sows with cubs were being killed. On average, out of approximately 400 bears killed each spring, 8 lactating sows were killed, and the CPW estimated half of those had the cubs already die in the den.

The interesting part is we are now killing MORE lactating sows in the September season.........It's because with the spot and stalk methods, the cubs (which are now 3-4 months older) may not be as close to the sow or even be seen in brush. Whereas with hounds or bait in the spring, usually those cubs are in the tree with the sow or close by the sow over bait. And the in the case of hounds, the last thing any responsible houndsman wants is his dogs tangling with a momma bear. She's liable, if not likely, to come out of the tree and fight the dogs until somebody is dead. So most hound hunters avoided sows accompanied by cubs when possible.

Casey

You know a lot more about this than you are sharing with us.
C'mon man share your thoughts.

Don't forget other factors -

- Drought has already been mentioned.
- You have a disproportional mule deer population in the Gunnison valley - possibly hammered by winter kill depending on whom you talk to.
- Encroachment by whitetail everywhere in eastern Colorado. This makes the overall numbers look different (worse for mule deer).
- Colorado has not followed the lead of some other states with constructing over/under passes for safe wildlife passage.
- Personally I don't buy into the 'loss of habitat' argument at this time because the economy has been so poor.
- I (kinda) buy into the predator argument just from personal observation. For 20 years I have been monitoring trail cams and recently I see more bears and lions than ever before.
- CWD? Seems like the spread is too slow.

I never understood this part of the ballot initiative.
It was already illegal to kill momma bear.
Bear tits are prolly no more invisible than those of ... lets say a dog.

I think the year after the spring bear vote there was another vote on something to do with hog farming. Your local Starbucks barista got an equal say on how those hog farms should be run. To me it signaled that the Colorado ballot initiatives were out of control.

I'm one of those who would not go out of my way to hunt bear, but I carry the concurrent bear tag every year during my elk season.
I never held a bear tag prior to that ballot initiative.

In California you cannot shoot a sow if she has Cubs that weigh 50 pounds or less. So you have to shoot the Cubs then weigh them and if they weigh more than 50 pounds then you can shoot the sow. That's how I explained it to my girlfriend once.

She came back with "well if you kill the Cubs then the sow doesn't have clubs anymore."