So, what went wrong? And what will make it right?
The anticipated decline in Colorado big-game harvest became reality last week with the Division of Wildlife’s release of official statistics.
While the falloff was entirely expected for a variety of reasons, the extent of the drop seems more dramatic when set to raw numbers.
After a steady upward trend for six years, Colorado deer hunters bagged almost 10,000 fewer animals in 2008 — 35,552 against 45,026 a year earlier. Elk also dipped, from 49,012 to 45,271. DOW projects its harvest statistics from an extensive hunter survey that remains constant through the years.
In both cases, a lag in hunter numbers played heavily into the equation.
Bruce Watkins, DOW’s big-game coordinator, pointed to a sharp deer license adjustment in two northwest areas — the White River Plateau/ Piceance and Bears Ears — along with the allowance for winter mortality in the Gunnison country as prime elements in a license reduction that mirrored the harvest.
“We redid our model for those areas, and that showed fewer deer than we believed previously. As a result, we decreased the number of licenses for both bucks and does,” Watkins said.
That played heavily in a dip of roughly 10,000 deer hunters. But hunter success lagged as well, about 5 percent when one factors in all matters of take.
The Gunnison situation long had been evident, the worst winter kill in 25 years, but Watkins believes similar conditions in other areas also may have contributed.
“We may have had more mortality in places outside the Gunnison Basin than we believed,” Watkins said in explaining the general lack of success.
Watkins blamed the drop in elk harvest principally on dry weather conditions that got progressively worse as the season progressed. Following 31 percent success in the first of four season splits, that measure dipped to 16, 14 and 18 percent as the hunt progressed.
The overall elk success comparison: 20 percent in 2008, 22 percent the previous season.
“We did drop the numbers of licenses in some units, primarily the White River and Bears Ears, similar to deer, but mostly it was weather-related,” the biologist said. Watkins also noted a lag in the sale of over- the-counter bull tags, attributed to the general economic malaise that settled over the nation in the latter part of the year.
Watkins noted that virtually all the troubles occurred in the southwest and northwest regions, where most hunting activity occurs. Success held relatively constant in the northeast and southeast.
When it comes to projecting trends for the upcoming 2009 season, we find markedly different directions for deer and elk. Relatively mild weather across the state during the current winter period prompts biologists to project a recovery in deer populations and, presumably, a boost in license sales and harvest.
Elk allocations, meanwhile, continue to be governed by an overall effort to balance animals with available range.
“No bones about it, we’ve been reducing elk populations, and likely our harvest will continue to decline as we get closer to our objective,” Watkins explained.
The trend is particularly evident when that 2008 harvest figure of 45,271 is compared to the 2004 record of 63,336. The 2008 total is the lowest since 2001, when a sharp hike in license costs caused nonresident hunters to stay away in droves.
So what does all this mean for the upcoming season?
“We’ll know more when our post- hunt survey is digested in mid- April,” Watkins said. These statistics are used to determine the 2009 license allotments.
Meanwhile, pronghorn hunters enjoyed their best success since 1996, bagging 9,625 animals, up more than 1,000 from 2007.
Charlie Meyers: 303-954-1609 or cmeyers@denverpost.com
