Bplott wrote:Sacket,
Its sure funny that all our high density elk units are also our high density bear units .......so its pretty obvious the bear population is not hurting the elk units....studies done by jordan peterson and hal black show that bears have ever little effect on fawn and calf survival.....
A person or group has to look at something before they can find it bplott. I haven't looked at the data for years, but our calf elk production in the Uinta Mountans was up above 55 calves per hundred head of cows while the calf production was down around 33 calves per 100 cows in the Book Cliffs during the same time period. Likewise, the bear population is many times higher in numbers in the Books than in the Uinta Mountains. Now that doesn't mean much because it doesn't prove that the bears are removing move calves in the Books than the Uintas. A study has to be focused and open to predation studies before they show much, and too many of the modern day biologists just accept predators as part of the package and write them off as not a limiting factor.
There have been comments made in these post about range conditions yet we have spent more money on range improvement in recent years than all the years in the past. Controlled burns would help in some areas but DWR doesn't have control over that, rather the BLM or Forest Service. And control burns cost money and have risks, and somebody has to pay for them. Who is gonna do that the Utah Houndsmen Association? SFW? Obama?
That study done in Idaho clearly showed they had trapped 75 bears and moved them across the state and the calf production jumped the following year from 20 calves per 100 to 61, and as the bears moved back in and repopulated that area the calf production was reduced back down near the twenty it had had before the predator control. Those biologists determined that elk calves are more subject to predation by bears because elk clump up in herds on the calving grounds and when a bear finds them it's kind of like a coon in your sweet corn patch bplott.
Now I'm not preaching about harvesting bears to save elk, nor am I saying we need to kill more lions to save deer, but to make comments that predation isn't real is a false assumption and ideology. What I find sad is modern day studies look more at production and cub survival than the interactions of the predator/prey species. Bottom line is there are just too many things picking at our deer herds, between the lions, bears, coyotes, eagles and man, which includes vehicles and guns. There are other factors such as habitat and weather, but to not acknowledge the predator/prey relationship is like hiding your head in the sand...........
I did not bother to read Hal Black's bear study because they gave those bears human names rather than numbers and because after ten years they didn't show proof of any depredation from bears other than the one my buddy ran down for ADC.
Now having said all that understand that I would support a limit to killing female lions and bears, but i don't believe for one minute that the DWR and ADC will not continue removing problem animals. Furthermore I don't support turning hunters into criminals because they can't determine whether the lion sis a female or the bear is a sow as I see that as an increase in animal rights and a devaluing of our species. I don't hunt elk or deer anymore and so it would not bother me if deer hunting goes into further limits to save deer for my lions to eat.
We have further issues in the Basin because of the Tribe, as they can and do manage their own wildlife. They have far fewer controls on them hunting anything from lions to deer than state hunters, and there was a time when they could go pick up four either sex tags for free, use them, then go get four more. So don't ever think I haven't watched and listened over my lifetime to the issues facing hunters in the Uintah Basin, but many o f those issues neither you, nor I, nor DWR has any control over.
