Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Elk Hunting Big Game Forever Video of Gunnison Colo wildlife Jan 31 2017

A BGF video of Gunnison Colo's wildlife showing the winter hardship 3 miles east outside Gunnison. Filmed Jan 31, 2017

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NeCwQo8EmgU

Guess the FUGG head fish and game needs to increase tags there ?? Same as it was in winter 79-80 hauled em off in dump trucks too many to even count,after years of restricted tags issued !!

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The problem isn't the number of tags issued ( unlimitid OTC bull tags in 2nd ,3rd season this year) but the large herds of elk that leave huntable public land at the first rifle shot to congregate on two big private ranches that do not permit hunting. On one ranch alone,it is common to see 400-800 head of elk starting about the 3rd day of 1st rifle season

The real problem throughout most of Colorado is that people built their cities and towns (as well as their ranch headquarters) on traditional big game winter range.

No.
All 3 converged valleys produce amazing quality pasture and can support an incredible number of animals per acre. It doesn't matter if it is the best pasture in the world though if they can't get to it.
That sunbaked snow has set up like concrete and rain will have made it even harder yet. That is not that unusual in that area but this year it is particularly bad.

Not thinking of elk so much as deer, funny thing game and fisheads over at Buena Vista scare them off private property, guess Gunnison ain't got balls enough to do it!!!!!

Not really, Lewis and Clark saw 10's of thousands of elk on the Great Plains. Most of the big game we think of as mountain dwelling were actually plains animals. People go places and develop, animals go somewhere else. It is a matter of adaptation or extinction.

Yea the guy that owns one ranch there has more money than CPW

That's a really ignorant post.

Mudhen was spot on.

It isn't ignorant, just an observation. Thanks to critics like you good people leave this site.

Maybe "traditional winter range" isn't really traditional.

Colorado mule deer populations are fragile and vulnerable. There are about a dozen different detriments to herd recovery and reasons vary a lot from place to place. It has been a huge problem for biologists for decades. Typically each location has it's unique challenges.

The Buena Vista valley is a great example of what Mudhen was referencing. It does not have the same problems with snow as frequently as the Gunnison valley but it does not have the volume or quality of pasture by comparison either. That valley had natural obstacles to begin with and a layer of development on top of that. Loss of habitat there really makes an impact.

You're right, maybe naive or shortsighted is better? I'm not really sure you had a point but if we follow your logic then maybe shouldn't do any management and just let the animals adapt to whatever the [bleep] we feel like doing and maybe they adapt and survive and maybe they don't?

Where elk lived 200 years ago is not really pertinent to this discussion. We live in the here and now and their current winter range here in CO, and all across the west, is ever shrinking.

I'm no expert and I'm sure their are plenty of wildlife biologists who might contradict me but all the ones I've known will tell you habitat loss is usually the biggest factor in wildlife health and survival. With plenty of good habitat, winter and summer, the better a population can maintain and support it's numbers and the better it can weather various storms like predators, disease, hard winters, etc.

So I guess my point is what's your point? Other than regurgitating facts most on here already know and trying to make mudhen, someone who I can almost guarantee has more wildlife bio/management experience then you do, look like a he doesn't know what he's talking about?

If you'd said "traditional winter range isn't really traditional" you'd have gotten no disagreement from me.

But that's not what you said.

The fact is, that traditional winter range on the plains is no longer a viable option as winter range for the elk who now live in our mountains. The winter range that's available to them now is primarily the river valleys, and mudhen was correct in his observation that the river valleys are also the places where people are moving in and making that particular habitat unavailable.

The quality and quantity of their available winter range is also a limiting factor in their populations. So loss of that habitat is most definitely a problem. And not only a problem for the elk, since elk hunting is a big part of the rural economies hereabouts.

As far as "good people leaving the site," bullsh**. Good people know when they've made an ignorant statement and have the capacity to acknowledge the same.

For sure.