Home Forums Hunting & Shooting General Big Game Predator/Prey study in the blues..

Blue mountains, SE Washington, was once one of the premiere elk units ever, anywhere. Anyhow, while spring bear hunting down there last spring, wdfw were collaring elk calves, to gain info on the fast declining elk herd in there. Here are some results I poached from another site.. pretty interesting. Just remember, hound hunting, weather you like it or not is a very important part of game management….

That’s interesting to see the low bear numbers. There was a couple studies in NM that showed bears were pretty hard on calves.

Unfortunately, houndsman are on the hit list everywhere.

Brother SLM, lotsa bear in the blues. Hounds were voted out in 96 I believe.

Here is one of the studies that show bears were the highest % of predation on calves in Northern NM.

https://ttu-ir.tdl.org/handle/2346/72374?show=full

I’m guessing it’s just a matter of time before they come after the houndsman here.

Stoners! Good damn Stoners!

Haha you fuucker!! Shoulda shot everyone we saw, then Fred would a really cried!!! 😂

You guys stoned??? ,haha

Found lotsa fawns slicked up over the years here on Westside by bears, no wolves over here yet.

I am sure that pressure on lion populations by hound hunters where legal does have at least something to do with it.
Several of the elk calf studies I have been involved with, whether directly or in passing, reflected what that NM study concludes....that being bears caused the biggest mortality in elk calves. More so than lions and wolves, at least in the spring. These studies were in ID and MT though, where hound hunting for lions is still really common. 10 or so years ago Montana substantially lowered their lion quota in many of their western units so it basically is catch and release there anymore, and I have not been involved in nor seen any similar studies there since the lion quota was dropped so much, so I can't really make a judgment about it. I should note that bears can be both baited and chased by hounds in Idaho, and Montana just now allowed hounds for bears too, so there's that angle to consider.

Since Washington doesn't allow hounds nor bait for either predator which I am sure results in lower harvest rates of them, it makes a guy ponder...

Ted I woulda figured bears to be the main culprit too. Just about impossible to keep lions in check without dogs...

Retired now, moving to Idaho, west central area just across the Snake from the Blues. Going to hunt ML, Bears, wolves, all predators 24/7 where legal.

Buying a small dual sport motorcycle and small snowmobile, going to build a camper built like a house, woodstove etc. and spend my days afield. Hunting, trapping, might take a day off here and there and fish.

I would think more people would go out of their way to lower the number of predators that are depleting our ungulate herds, too busy hunting horns I guess.

Gonna be living in the Clearwater mike? Come on over, you can buy 2 lion tags, get after em!! Blues are a super cool place.

Damn. Bobcat? How big is an elk calf for a bob to take one?

Not to short other predators, and certainly not mountain lions....

But the wolftards have their fangs in deep to play the narrative that woofs are peaceful little lap dogs. All cute and cuddly.

Judman,

Further south Grangeville/Riggins/McCall , just have to take what you can find these days, Apartment that is.
Gave up on buying land until the craziness slows, Realtor in McCall told me how prices have been jacked way up since the introduction of the covid scam.
People charging [and getting] $1000 month for a spot of land to park a camper on makes that land quite valuable. LAF

Haven't did much research on the Blues in Washington state, Oregon basically has year-round ML hunting in the Blue Mtns.
Based in Idaho, I can hunt wolves the majority of the year, year-round in the northern part of the state. ML's until quotas are met, although rarely ever met.

Copy that, all good country, love all 3 locations. 👍

30ish pounds is about the average weight of a newborn elk calf. A one year old bobcat could easily take a calf.
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Had a friend met on Longrange Hunting site from Pendleton, Oregon [flybuster] come over and met up to do some calling, we got stuck and his friend Joe came down and rescued us.

Another guy was doing some mining stuff in the Blue Mtns., Oregon, walked up on a HUGE ML, it ran off and into a cave/mine. He called Joe to invited him to go into the cave after the huge ML [great friend ]
so they go in with flashlights and firearms, don't remember exact firearms long guns and pistols.
The ML had got deep into the Mine, there was a straight down hole into the abyss dangerous place, they shot and killed the ML and risked life and limb getting it out. Joe was 6'-2-3'', 210=220 going off memory.
He posed with the huge Tom in typical ''bear-hug'' fashion, hard not to think it was fake it was so big. Head up higher than Joe's head legs touching the ground tail out of the picture it was so long.
Said it weighed 200lbs.and I believe it.
I kept the picture in LRHunting website but it disappeared after a website update, bummer..

Yep!

Interesting post. What's the source of info in the OP?
I know bears hammer the calves hard but, as rockinbbar intimated, the pro-wolf sentiment runs deep here in Oregon Dept of Fish and Wildlife and it wouldn't surprise me at all if data is skewed intentionally. I've spent considerable time in the Wenaha over the years. I've hiked the length of the river as well as hiking down to it from the WA side, etc etc. I'd have to say it looks like elk numbers are dropping over the years while wolf numbers go up. Further, we had a nice small but growing population of moose in that part of the State, though they too have been hit very hard by the wolves.
To your point, the last time I floated the GR River I saw 8 bears, all but three nice cinnamon coats.

Dan info collected was from wdfw. I also wish they had a way of collecting data from the nez pierce tribe from Idaho and how how many bulls they come over and kill. The last 10 years, I bet we have 1/3 the elk numbers. Place used to be unbelievable in September/early October.

Jud, I hear ya. I've heard some absolutely crazy stories from a warden re game slaughter care of the rez population, just really disheartening

Yeah, looks like kitty cat population problem.

Pulling Washington DFW numbers offa the internet, a male cat is expected to kill a deer every 9-12 days and female with kittens will kill as often as every 4 days. That's a hell of a lot of deer.

I think there is a solution. Add incentive for hunters to target cats by offering one deer tag or one elk tag per cat they kill in the unit they "take" the cat from. Yes, it is 1 lost deer or 1 lost elk, but that's a gain of 25+ animals that cat would have killed in the same year. They could do that selectively so that only units that are less than .. say 75%, as a random number .. of the deer or elk management objective are included in the "program."

Tom

Black bear predation on elk calves was studied extensively in the Clearwater region in the 1970's, by Idaho F&G biologist, Mike Schlegel. That was when game biologists had to actually be in the field.... He found that black bears can hit elk calves hard for about the first 6 weeks of life and after that, there is hardly any predation at all from bears. The first two weeks of life is where black bears get most of them. In the Clearwater, range conditions and snow pack kept calving elk and bears in close proximity. He called it the perfect "predator pit" His study is interesting reading. Current biologists have tried to tear down the study and not place the blame directly on bears or any predator for that matter.

Schlegel's study also removed and relocated some bears just to see if that would ease the predation. Even though some bears were moved well over a 100 miles away, they still came back to the same vicinity where they were captured. When they did lower bear numbers, elk calf survival increased, but it was a short term thing and eventually bear predation went back up.

Lions kill elk calves year round so I can see why bear predation is just a fraction of lion kills in the stats listed above. Even when elk calves are up and moving well they are likely to do something dumb and lions really like to key in on certain animals. And elk-calf sized critter makes an easy target. Even a 5-6 month old calf would still be just the right size for a lion to kill. An elk calf less than a week or two old would be an easy target for anything that bites and is over 10 lbs.

Might be the place we went, but many years ago I hunted in the Blues with some friends from Moscow. They were regulars at it. What a zoo . But that's what you get when your camping spot can be driven to. Much worse than the Steese Hwy 40-mile caribou hunt up here, now. I saw dozens of coyotes, hundreds of "hunters"- many of them drunk, with atrocious gun-handling even sober, and 5 cow elk, a long ways away, in a flat outpanic run....

I was most definately negatively impressed and said "Ef this!" Never went back.

I don't know why my friends even went there, as they had horses and were good elk hunters, usually going up in the Clearwater and Selway-Bitterroot areas, back in.

Now that I have vented for no good reason...


No cats up here. Bears are the major predators on moose calves under 2-weeks? two months? old, and one study showed they accounted for 70% of all first year rmortalities, I believe here on the Kenai Peninsula. Been awhile since I've studied up on moose.

As to a bobcat taking small calves, I don't doubt it, tho I know little about bobcats. I'm sure a lynx could do it - even a moose calf, if mom didn't stomp it to cat litter, first.

In fact, one wide-eyed guy once told me how just hours before he had seen a golden eagle kill a moose calf - probably just hours old, I'm guessing. The eagle came in hard from behind and nailed the calf in the back of the head with clenched claws. Done deal - circled around, landed back on the calf, and started feeding.

Good luck on getting your cat problem,/predation under control. You are going to need it, being all liberal pussified. So to speak.

In the late 70's I hunted the Blues coming in from Troy and hunting the Washington side. Went in a couple times on horses with an outfitter named Slim Stucker. I was hunting deer and never did hunt elk in the Blues. Lots of elk and some buster deer.
Sorry to hear that the populations are on the slide. It was a wonderful place to hunt. Good memories.

Las , do you recall the nearest town to the area you’re describing?

There is a reason our forefathers killed the piss out of 4 legged predators and got those 2 legged feathery tree perching predators thinned down pretty good.

A guy I know knew where there was a coyote den in an old dozer pile and put a game cam up on it. What he saw throughout that summer was 27 fawns brought in to the pups.

Chew on that for a bit, 1 litter of coyote pups and 27 dead deer.

Those larger predators you all are talking about would be absolute hell on deer and elk.

When you have groups like BHA in bed with millionaire anti predator hunters, it’s a bleak outlook.

Ya, I know, “it’s for the greater good”. Famous last words.

Don Peay was discussion in another thread and wonder how the BHA minions are going to feel when Land pulls the same exit stage left after he’s bilked it for what it’s worth.

LOL.

Bear hunting sub-forum on LRHunting had this contact information post for Washington State to voice your opinions on re-opening a spring bear hunt.
The anti-hunters don't sit idle, nor should we.

https://wdfw.wa.gov/about/commission/contact

When you move to central Idaho you'll see its a bit tougher getting in the back country than Arkansas especially in winter.

Blues used to be great elk hunting. It was spike or cow archery season. Never drew the bull tag for that unit.
in 2004 I had 4 big bulls screaming at me when I was cow calling a spike in. . All within a 100 yards, one came running in tearing up trees. Used to be a great herd and tons of bulls in the blues. I hunted by the ski area, What a shame WDFW did to the game herds in WA.

wolves, cats and especially the Indians put a real hurt on that herd.

Sent this even though I don't live there, made up an address in walla walla, Washington 99362 . It's for the children, amen.

Ungulate populations are dropping in Washington State, you are in charge of Conservation, why would you not open a spring bear season?
It goes without saying that Bears kill hordes of newborn calves and fawns.
Please stick to a scientific method of Conservation and allow Bear numbers to be kept in check, along with wolves and cougars.
Thank you , Mike

Must be talkin about bluewood ribka? Shag and I camped there for a couple weeks last spring. Love that country. Always a big bull or 2 around bluewood, brushy bastard.





That’s at the snow park right below bluewood

Chase mtn lookin over to newby mtn.

Jud, If it weren't for the hundreds of drunken hunters that would be a real nice camp..

Haha they were everywhere!! 😂

Ribka,
I lived in Meridian, Idaho in 07-08,hunted/camped north of there, Stanley, east of Cascade, others places of coarse. Yep nothing like haunting back east, just got to wear out some boots to get where you want to go.

Did you Trap?
I plan on doing some trapping, public and private land.

Judman,

Great pictures looks like a great spot.

TOM,

Great idea in the free tag for taking a lion.

I've been drunk but not when hunting game, hunt'n in a Bar - yeah.

The blues currently have the largest wolf pack in the state of Washington right now working on the elk and cattle populations. Been very hard on both. The game dept will come and look at the kills and will hymn and ha and say it could be a wolf kill. Only problem they can't talk their way out of the game camera pictures of the wolf pulling the calf down. Bears are the most plentiful I have ever seen them in my life time and there are countless pictures of cougar everywhere from peoples yard to their barns. The game dept is currently run by a bunch of liberal biologist that think hunters have no place in the mountains. But what do I know. I am just a hick from the sticks.

Read an article a while back about lefties getting lefties in high positions in Fish/Game Departments across the country. They in turn promote left leaning Biologist, left leaning everybody.
According to the article, this has been going on for 20+ years.

Article reminded me of a guy I knew in Idaho, who named some pro-wolf employees at the fish and game dept., back in 07-08-09. He said the Forest Service [federal agency] was full of them.

Liberal bunny huggers have homesteaded many agencies and stuck around and risen to leadership positions where they can influence and implement policy. Good news for wolves and other predators; not so much for game and sportsmen. Just saying…

Yep used to hunt back side of blue wood . Used to be incredible elk numbers in that area. You could hear dozens of bulls screaming at night for your tent. It was a nuisance because it was difficult to sleep with all of the noise lol

Awwwww yes, I remember this days..... Pretty amazing, bigger bulls killed outta the blues than Arizona, sans, the San Carlos.... But I'm speaking outta line....😂😂😂🖕🖕

Ol mike: Good for you and good luck in reducing the over-population of predators.
Hold into the wind
VarmintGuy

Thank you VarmintGuy !