Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Elk Hunting Wolf Predation: Mystery solved!

The results are out! The latest Montana Outdoors magazine tells us ( Courtesy of USFW and FWP) what happened to all the elk in the bitterroot since the introduction of wolves.
Various types of "unknown predation" accounted for 70% of the mortality, bears took another 11% Lions took a pile and the sacred wolves only took 5%
Concurrently a scat study on wolves showed 61% of their scat contained elk remains............


If you like that warm fuzzy feeling of having smoke blown up your ass, you'll love this article!

That's Common Core math for ya!

Our former Big Game Coordinator, Keith Warnke (WI) subscribed to the same sort of "new math".

Damn, you must feel like a rocket, about ready for liftoff......

Is MT selling unknown tags yet? There must be a huntable population.

Unknown. Does that me Sasquach and Chupacabra? That's about all that's left after you account for lions, bears, and wolves.

I love agenda driven "science"

Skane,

The best (by that I mean worst) is yet to come in WI. The Gov. gave everyone what they wanted and now we'll wait to see how that isn't going to fix anything either and the same belly achers will be right back at it again.

When coyotes first started showing up here the deer hunters were worried about the potential predation on the deer herd. Our game managers released an article that said coyotes eat a large variety of foods and deer almost didn't factor in to their diet. The big question was, if this was true, how come every scat pile from a coyote that you ever see here is made up of mostly deer hair. The earlier story has since been changed but it took 30 years....

Are you referring to this article?

http://fwp.mt.gov/mtoutdoors/pdf/2014/BitterrootElk.pdf

Curious where you get the 70% number for unknown predation?



It's a good article IMO, and a damned important study. Kudos to those groups that opened up their wallets. Also, glad it mentions this, but most will gloss over it. Statute? Legislators, and their emotions determining wildlife decisions? Sounds like California.

Didn't notice anything happened to the elk in the Bitterroot. Cept for the ones I put in my freezer every year. Wierd. mtmuley

Link to report.........

Yep. Thats the article. My 70% figure was wayyyyy off due to pre-caffiene posting

Still, the important figure in the study was 5% by wolf predation...and 38% by unknown causes or predation.

And FWP increasing cow harvest quotas....are you by chance from Montana?

They increased the number of cow tags in order to generate revenue, and for no other reason. When numbers are down, why would they raise quotas?

And Im still curious as to why so many wolves had elk remains in their scat when they only took 5%.... 61% of them did....they must have been dining with the lions or the 'unknowns'....

That is also in the article...



I don't see your problem with the math, but possibly consult Jeff for a pie chart.

Some good information in that article.

For those that don't understand how FWP manages elk, here's a link to the Elk Management Plan.

http://fwp.mt.gov/fishAndWildlife/management/elk/

Politics (aka landowner "social" tolerances) have a whole lot more to do with population control than wolves ever will... Something like 85 of hunting districts in MT are at or over objective population wise according the plan. Many areas have population numbers based on what landowners are willing to tolerate and nothing to do with carrying capacity.

Varmint Guy will be along shortly to throw a temper tantrum at you via an exclamation point filled rant.........

Casey

Really simple.

Just because the wolf did the eating, doesn't mean the wolf did the killing.

Stop making sense. mtmuley

So when wolves run a lion off its kill it doesn't count towards wolves and with the largest percentage as combined unknowns and 61% of wolf scat containing elk then I'm betting the largest driver of elk mortality is actually wolves. But the rewilding CSer's at the FWS and the Montana F&G are doing everything in there power to obscure the impact of the mutts.

Wolf article in December American Hunter if interested

Mike