Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Elk Hunting Survival of an elk calf

Populations with "young" age structures are growing populations, for the most part, if the sex ratio is not too badly skewed one way or the other . Populations with an "old" age structure may be stable (in the absence of significant predation and with recruitment equaling mortality), or declining (i.e., recruitment is less than mortality).

I am not familiar with the data from Banff that Casey cited, but I cannot remember having seen cervid populations with sex ratios greater than 1:2 (males to females) that were not intensively managed to achieve these levels. That includes a lot of unhunted populations around the globe. All of the life table data that I have reviewed indicates that males naturally suffer higher mortality rates than females at all ages, but especially in the first 2 years of life.

I would be interested to see some population data for free-ranging elk herds with naturally high male/female sex ratios in the absence of hunting...

I agree. My point being that sport hunting tends to keep populations VERY young, and we probably choose to kill certain individuals that in a hunted population that wouldn't normally die so soon (ie: mature males for example) and skew male-female ratios, female-calf ratios, and age structure in a way that may have long term effects that occur over such a long period of time it may not be easy to detect. More like a slow "drift".




Our problem is almost all the data comes from hunted populations, whether it is sport hunting in North America, Western Europe, or parts of Africa, or moderate/heavy subsistance hunting like other parts of Africa or regions of Russia/Eurasia. Because large mammal populations are almost always the first to be killed when humans show up, there is very little data available to suggest what is "natural".

I've never seen the actual studies or population surveys from Banff, but have seen it quoted in other studies and popular publications.

I have a couple long time buddies who are/were biologists in the CDOW, and 20 years ago the common wisdom among biologists were elk in the Southern/Central Rockies only live 10-12 years. Then the Canadian biologists showed elk living a lot longer in the wild. Also, simply tagging more elk in recent times have showed some wild elk living a lot longer than expected--if they aren't killed by hunters, cars, or other "human induced" mortality. So that idea has changed some.

Casey

I once killed a cow caribou here on the Kenai Peninsula with an ear tag that indicated she was from the first re-introduction. If she was a calf at the time, it would have made her 23 years old....

She did seem a bit senile, but with caribou, it can be hard to tell.....

I don't recall anything in the moose biology that I have read that indicates bulls have a higher mortality rate in the first 2 years of life. Nor do I fathom why males of any wild ungulate species would have a higher mortality in the first two years of life. What I do recall is that if an animal (moose of any sex) lives to be a year old, it is likely to live a full life-span with bulls generally having somewhat shorter life spans than cows due to the stresses and injuries of rut when mature.

In comparison with a herd animal like elk, (moose are very social animals- but they like their personal space!) I would give an orphaned moose calf of the year very little likely-hood of surviving in this area, due to predation, snow depth, and the height of much of available browse. A mature cow can "ride down" taller saplings to get at the digestible twigs on top, a calf cannot, either from lack of learned technique, or from shear lack of body mass to do so.

That may explain something I've wondered about. Here in Wyoming it is illegal to shoot a moose cow with a calf. No such rule applies to cow elk.

I've only killed two caribou, but they were kinda' interesting to watch!




'Cause bulls are males--they tend to do more risky things

In mule deer, it seems male fawns are more susceptible to pnuemonia and scours, and more likely to die in that first year.

Suprisingly, bull elk during the rut burn/have higher energy requirements than a pregnant cow during the third trimester. If those bulls don't put that weight back on before the real cold sets in, there chances of survival go down quite a bit.


Casey

A few random odds and ends to add to the topic -

I have noticed that there are several elk mortality studies published (and more on the way) that concentrate on the effects of predation. This is no doubt in response to the increasing wolf populations in Montana, Yellowstone, and elsewhere. One statistic that was noted, and that seemed to surprise the biologists, was that the predation on elk calves by bears was higher than previously thought.

Elk live in such diverse habitat that calf mortality rates and causes vary tremendously from one area to another. My own personal rule of thumb when I�m holding a cow tag and facing the calf or cow dilemma is I choose the cleanest and most certain shot. It is important to know your own area. As many here have already attested there are certain parts of the country where it is always clearly preferable to chose one or the other from a management standpoint.

I�ve done some reading of Valerius Geist who mentions stream crossings as a notable cause of mortality in elk. I�m sure that is not true everywhere, but it is really applicable to the areas where I live and hunt. I do some data collection for the DOW and took the following photos while doing surveys.

This bull had apparently already shed his horns when it was somehow killed in a steep drainage filled with 10� willows. This drainage was also an avalanche run. Willows trap snow and in Spring make an unpredictable consistency with soft spots. If an avalanche had run that year it could have set up some very hard snow with soft spots � especially with a creek running below the snow. It is very possible that once he fell through he simply couldn�t escape the deep snow.


This calf lost its footing while following the herd across a snow patch on a steep creek crossing. This was in early July. I found it at the bottom of the snowfield. It probably broke something in the fall and the scene probably got ugly when the predators arrived and faced the cow.


BTW � thanks Casey for weighing in on this. You always have a lot to offer on these type of topics.

Last fall I shot a wet cow the 1st week of Nov. She had a calf with her and the 2 were 1/2 mile from a herd. The calf hung around for a while but by the time we were done dressing the cow, we saw it heading over the hill toward the herd.

The way the winter has been this year, calf mortality will probably be close to 100% in NW Colorado.

I stopped shooting cow elk.

Don't know if this transfers across species or not, but in the 8 years I lived in Kotzebue, the caribou would show up locally when they could cross the ice on Kotzebue Sound- usually early Nov, give or take.

The rut is in progress, or just ending, so the locals prefer to shoot cows , as the big bulls, anyway, can be inedible, and most all bulls - even the wannabes, have little or no fat either from actively rutting, or practicing for it. Eskimos have a thing for fat, and fat animals.

I found a lot of orphaned calve dead out there on the tundra.

They have a strong attachment to their mothers, and will often not go with the rest of the herd.

I once shot a cow on the edge of a herd of about 200, which then (the herd) ran off. As I was dressing her out, her (presumably!) 18 month old calf came back looking for her. She died too.... daily limit of 5.

Several other times I observed the same thing,- a not-of-the-year animal only slightly smaller than the cow I killed would come back checking on my kill, then take off back to the other caribou. The above is the only time I shot this secondary animal, however.

3 years ago, we hunted caribou off the Steese near Fairbanks. Either sex, 2 animal limit. I took my second in the fog, at about 15 feet; a calf, that was hanging around her mother's gut pile. Someone had shot the cow the night before, just as it was getting dark. I heard the (only) shot after I had come down the trail some time before, and the gut pile hadn't been there then.

I got maybe 15 lbs of meat off the calf, but I didn't mind burning my tag, as both my wife and son were there with tags also. Lousy weather, and we were a bit picky on cows with calves - we came home with 2 cows (no orphans were made), and that orphan calf.

The limit last year was one bull (declining herd) , which sorts out the dilemma! As does not seeing a single damned caribou....

Holy necro post

I sure miss Mudhen.