Given the recent history of Colorado elk management, it may cause no great surprise or concern that the Division of Wildlife proposes to issue 15,000 fewer cow elk tags for the 2006 hunt.
Finally, all those years of intense effort toward herd reduction finally has taken hold, putting statewide numbers essentially in balance with objective. Further, the 137,000 cow licenses that will be recommended to the Wildlife Commission at its Thursday meeting still puts plenty of meat on the table.
It’s what almost certainly will come later, perhaps as soon as two years, that sets off sounds of alarm.
Unless biologists badly miss their guess, the number of ant- lerless tags soon will shrink to 70-80,000 – about half the 152,000 issued last season.
As anyone who hunts for the larder knows full well, that means a lot fewer elk steaks in the freezer. It also foretells a return to the time when a license to hunt cow elk was hailed as a prize possession.
“Back in the day, drawing a cow tag really meant something,” said Rick Kahn, state big game supervisor. “We now have a group of hunters who never had to live with that.”
Kahn said such a sharp decline in license couldn’t come sooner than two years and could be as much as five years distant. But as sure as an elk sleeps in the woods, this return to yesteryear is on the near horizon.
The reason? The herd reduction initiative that caused so many licenses to be issued in the first place officially has done its job. Statewide elk numbers are at, or near, DOW’s objective.
There’s no need to continue laying down large numbers of cows to keep elk in balance with the environment.
Approaching this long-sought point of equilibrium, population dynamics are such that continuing to target cows – about 30,000 have been harvested in each of the past five years – could result in a dramatic and unfortunate reduction in the overall herd. This is particularly true in event of a killer winter.
“We’re definitely rolling back the clock,” said Tom Remington, manager of DOW’s Terrestrial Section.
In truth, one doesn’t have to roll far to find a time when cow tags matched this projection. DOW issued 46,000 cow permits as recently as 1998 and 68,000 the following year before leaping to 107,000 in 2000, then off into the stratosphere. Hunter success on cow elk averages just over 20 percent.
Trimming antlerless licenses by almost half implies a profound impact both on the agency’s finances as well as the various businesses that cater to the autumn invasion.
“We’re just getting into discussions internally about this,” Remington said. “This is the first shot across the bow.”
While economics, public and private, always form a concern, the ultimate decisions by law are based in biology. This science now dictates significantly fewer cows in the bag.
Such licenses matters will dominate the agenda when the commission convenes at 9 a.m. at the Holiday Inn Express in Montrose. The staff proposal for 2006 allows for a continued opportunity to hunt both a bull and cow elk in select western Colorado units.
Either sex tags will be available in key areas, although 5-10 percent fewer than a year ago.
Deer prospects continue to improve, reflected in a recommendation for 864 more buck licenses than 2005, to 91,903. At the same time, doe licenses will grow from 27,000, to 32,500, an indication that the statewide herd has swelled to slightly over objective.
Most of this proposed increase in license availability will be in the northwest, where population gains are greatest and fawn/doe ratios are highest.
Deer management in the northwest for 2006 is governed by List A, which allows a buck hunter to also possess a doe tag.
Pronghorn continue to expand following an earlier drought downturn; tags will increase 4,200 to 6,300. Similarly, moose licenses have grown from 159 to 185. Bear permits again will decline, this time by 255 to 2,540.
