I just received my annual Preference Point issue of Colorado Outdoors. CPW sure seems they be blowing smoke up someone's butt by inflating figures in order to keep license sales up. I have every issue since 2005. Going back to 2015, the total herd count for the state was 264030. Now it is 292760? Anyone see 22,000+ more? I sure haven't.
Looking at a few individual herds, of which units I have hunted in the past, they claim the White River herd, that encompasses quite a few Big Game units, grew 92000 more elk. The West Elk herd which is 35, 36 units stayed the same, about 3800-3900 elk.Talking to the local WCO, he told me that herd is the lowest they ever counted and advised not hunting there. Unit 54 which is North of Gunnison is hard to extrapolate, but use to be about 6300 by itself, but is now included in Unit 53 an another and shows about 7700. It is not showing any great increase in numbers since they cut it down to about 3100 back in 2015-2016 since selling those OTC cow and bull tags with a cap of 500.
I don' t think they have clue as to the true number of elk because they do small counts and then let a computer simulate the totals
Last edited by saddlesore; 01/28/21.
