I don't think this is particularly biased by the antis. The IDFG has been trying to keep wolf numbers in check and we have very liberal wolf hunting seasons. We can kill 5/yr, tags are very cheap, and seasons are long, year round in many areas.
Here's the complete article: COUGARS KILLING ELK

Of ALL deaths or deaths by predators?

https://www.ktvb.com/article/news/l...277-1e263f7e-6a11-49cb-ada1-8bf39185284e


Study: More elk killed by cougars than by wolves in Idaho
The study by the Idaho Department of Fish and Game examined 15 years of data.
Author: Associated Press
Published: 11:34 AM MDT August 7, 2019
Updated: 1:24 PM MDT August 7, 2019
SPOKANE, Wash. — More elk are being killed by cougars than by wolves in Idaho, a study by the state Department of Fish and Game has found.

The study found that wolves accounted for 32% of adult female elk deaths and 28% of elk calf deaths, while cougars accounted for 35% of adult female elk deaths and 45% of elk calf deaths.

The study also found that food availability and the severity of winter was the most important factor for elk calf survival.

RELATED: Federal agency taking comments on killing predators, like wolves, in Idaho

"Things are usually more complicated than one thing, but it's sometimes really hard to show that," said Jon Horne, lead author of the paper and a senior wildlife research biologist at the Idaho Department of Fish and Game

He told The Spokesman-Review that the findings are also likely applicable for Washington, Montana and Canada.

The study published earlier this year in the Journal of Wildlife Management examined 15 years of data.

"The one variable that mattered the most for calf survival was how big it was," Horne said.

While researchers were able to consider the size of wolf packs on elk mortality, they couldn't do that for mountain lions, which can be difficult to count.

"We didn't have a variable like the wolf variable where we knew what the lion population size was in an area," Horne said.

In a different study published in 2018 that examined wolves, Horne found that the average pack size didn't change much in Idaho between 2005 and 2015 despite the beginning of wolf hunting seasons.

"On one side of the ledger you have a portion of the public that thinks that harvest is just going to send the wolves to extinction and that has not been the case," Horne said. "And then . there is a side that thinks wolves are taking over and they will grow without limits."

Reading comprehension is a gift, apparently...

Cougar hunting has turned into a catch and release culture where many hound hunters frown on taking females or immature toms. Not many effective ways to hunt cats to begin with, let alone in the (roadless) back country.

Makes sense to me. Wolves hunt in packs. Mtn Lions hunt solo. 5 wolves kill 1 elk. 5 cats kill 5 elk.

Great Point!

However, with 5 wolves eating it, it'll only last 1/5 as long so they have to go hunting again. We know that wolves will kill for fun, too, without eating the kill.

From what I understand, the lion population in Idaho is double that of wolves. Makes sense they would take down more prey.

They have a pretty good handle on wolf numbers, estimating a little over 1000 in Idaho. They really don't know how many cougars there are. No serious research has been done on them. The best guesses are between 2 and 3,000 but that's a guess at best. In short, wolves are easier to count. They can collar 1 in a pack to enable them to keep track of the whole pack. Just listening for howling will tell them something, too. Collaring 1 cougar tells them there is 1 cougar and not much else.

Wonder what total elk numbers are now compared to 1990?

This^^^

The State of Idaho produced an excellent video on the financial impact that Wolves have had on farmers and ranchers.


mike r

Link?

A cougar hunt is nice every now and then.

I couldn't find a chart of elk numbers but here are 2 graphs of Idaho elk harvest for the last 10 years. Between them, they'll reach from '06 to '18.

Canadian Wolves were introduced into Idaho about 15 years before 2009 IIRC

Interesting graphs.

So basically no impact on the elk harvest for the last 13+/- years.

Seems when I moved to E WA in '09 there were gloom and doom stories popping up that harvests were going to plummet.

Geno

Seems to be a pretty stable harvest - even increasing in recent years.

So where does that leave the "Wolves are decimating our elk" guys?

Be nice to see data going back 30-40 years.

Kind of surprises me that wolves have a higher percentage of take of cows than calves, which are easier to kill - but I guess they are going for quantity.

Up here, wolves and bears seem to prefer moose calves to adults- again, easier to kill, and there is the size differential.

It took them 15 years to figure that out?

Interesting.

Would like to see a graph including elk population pre wolf reintroduction. Harvest may be up over the last 15 years, but that doesn't mean elk population overall is as well. Could very well be that the IF&G are simply over selling tags, as they do here in Oregon.

What's the bull to cow ratio? Is F&G achieving that by selling more cow tags (again, as is done in Oregon )?

Further, the study indicates the single greatest indicator of calf success is its size. Mature bulls breed earliest, producing larger calves. A herd that has been on the run from wolves gives birth to lighter calves. Fetal reabsorption is common in both harassed elk as well as cattle.

The whole story is not made clear from the results of this study.

What’s also being left out is that MANY cat hunters have quit hunting them due to predation of wolves on their hunting dogs.

It’s an indirect cause of elk mortality, because it allows cat numbers to flourish. The elk predation being higher by cats comes as no surprise at all. They are apex predators for sure.

Wolves also change the behavior of elk more substantially than cats. More specifically, I’ve seen the presence of wolves drastically reduce the vocalization of elk, as it likely sounds like a dinner bell to a pack. Less likely so with cats in my experience.

Dave

Does ID F&G have any number to show how many cat hunters have left the game?

Or numbers showing cat harvest down?

Geno

On You Tube, Life on the Range, wolf management in Idaho. It is a 5 part series produced by the State of Idaho. I thought it was excellent. Don't know how to post the link.


mike r

https://idrange.org/range-stories/north-idaho/wolf-series/


The wolves have definitely changed elk and moose behavior

Good copy...thanks.

Thanks Ribka,



mike r

Good points everyone, and good discussion. I know of quite a few cat hunters who have given up because of the wolves.

Yes, overall elk harvest in the state is doing well but I think most of it is because the southern Idaho herds are doing so well. There is no question that the northern parts of the state have seen their herds crushed by the wolves and they’re probably never coming back. The St. Joe and Clearwater river herds are a shadow of what they were in the 1980s and 1990s. The Selway elk herds have gone from something like 30,000 in the 1980s down to 1,000 or 2,000 head. The Frank Church’s elk herd may not be 1,000.

Elk in the Pioneer Zone in central Idaho were initially crushed by the wolves but have rebounded nicely, although many of central idaho’s elk herds are surviving by invading farm land for protection from the wolves which is causing a whole bunch of problems.

Yeah, everytime they tried to work on the study, they got another Walmart pop up ad.

It took them 15 years to get the hard data to prove it.

The IDFG is trying to thin out the cows in south central ID. They're issuing more tags and extending the seasons. Bull tags are quite hard to get but we can draw cow tags 4 out of 5 years. I'd rather hunt cows than not get a tag at all. This year they combined some cow hunts, made them OTC, and extended the seasons into Dec. Units 49/50 are 1 hunt with 2500 cow tags and units 45/52 have another 2500 tags. The tags sold out in days.

I have a friend who has been the state trapper here for 20 yrs or more, he is not a college boy, and he claims mountain lions do kill deer for sport. He also claims that about 70% of the lion kills that he investigates, are BUCKS. Considering that the buck/doe ratio here is badly lopsided, that is amazing. Could they actually be seeking out the bucks? Anybody ever heard this from other sources? California stopped all lion hunting about 16 years ago, which marked the decline of the Columbia Blacktail seasonal migration herds.

Lolo zone 16000 elk 1995, 1000 in 2016
Yeah right, is it all them lions killing all them elk.

We were lied to before introduction, during and apparently that has never nor will it ever stop.
Does anyone else recall the wolf proponents telling is that 300 would be a good balance and how happy they would be with that number?
Lyin bastids!


https://www.foundationforwildlifemanagement.org/wolf-facts

If the wolves were not there that many elk would live but you still need to kill the mountain lions.

According to the vid I mentioned the wolves have caused the cattle to be so canine averse that cattle dogs are now losing efficacy in Idaho. I follow the cow guys threads on here and herding cattle w/out a dog would seem to be difficult....and lonely. I like the idea of having wolves on the landscape and enjoy hunting them but if I was an Idaho rancher I would encourage and support hunting them on my property. Unforseen circumstances, our Govt is good at misjudging the future.



mike r

My Indian rancher friends hate grizzlies way worse than wolves.


They hate buffalo too.....



Isn't it Idaho that has a fleet of state guys feeding the elk in the winter time??

Yeah , I don't believe anything they say - data from known liars .

An article I read said that a well trained dog can cost as much as $5000 but it can do the work of 2 cowboys on horses. Cattle that have been harassed by wolves will attack the dogs instead of being herded so the dogs are useless. A rancher in wolf country might have to hire 2 men to replace 1 $5000 dog. That's not a profitable tradeoff.

The wolf huggers goal was to curtail big game hunting and ranching appears they are having much success.

Yeah, Jackson Hole, Ideyho.

Was that 300 for the state?

Lions definitely kill for fun. A Malibu wacko hippy lady lost 5 llamas in one night only one partially eaten. It came back two nights later and killed 2 more. She keeps them to make scarves and stuff from their wool. She didn't waste anytime getting a predation permit from DFW. She was practically an overnight believer in cat hunting.

I thought it was for the entire NW but it was years ago, Clintons' first term, I can't be 100% sure if it was state or region

I think you're right.

I hunted elk up in 10a about 12 years ago. It used to be a premier area for elk. We hardly saw any elk. We did see tons of elk bones and wolf turds. It looked like an elk holocaust had taken place on one mountain.

My friends that run hounds rarely shoot a cat. They think the more cats the better. They just enjoy running their hounds. Friends are always sending me pics of mtn lions from their trail cams. A mountain lion grabbed a 3 year old kid about 15 miles from rexburg a few years ago. His grandma and I think another person chased the cat with sticks and it dropped the kid. Fish and game had some local hound hunters help them track the cat and put it down.

Bb

I have heard that cats focus on killing adult bucks. I have no idea why, or to what extent that is actually true.

It may be a matter of shared habitat. Mature bucks tend to stay high, as do cats.

Do the cats stay high to avoid interactions with people, or wolves, or heat stress?

All I know is that both cats and wolves have been hanging around my elk hunting area this year and the elk are few and far in between. Pics from a trail camera from this summer.

centershot those are mighty healthy looking cats and wolf, for predators that are starving due to having killed off all their prey. When does starvation set in?