Cypress Hills: Any Elk Left or...

[ishootbambi]

Originally Posted by smith88

CWD affected mule deer mainly, with 12 of 19 positive testing being form mule deer males, 5 mule deer females and 2 whitetail males. These are from Alberta and from submitted heads.

http://joomla.wildlife.org/alberta/i...ate%202011.pdf

that study is proving what many argued from day 1. cwd is not going to wipe out the deer herd.....mismanagement of cwd might though. the massive culls were conducted because of fear generated by computer modelling that showed that by 2013, 100% of the herd would be infected and dead. it was argued that history from colorado and wyoming showed the computer to be wrong, but nobody would listen to the science already known.

[PBHunter]

Originally Posted by ishootbambi

i do wish i could quote conversations, as 1500 was what the bios said was the 2002 elk populatiuon. february 2002 was the year they held a special quota hunt to try to reduce the herds as they were considered far too high. .

The numbers from your math seem reasonable for sure ... and it would appear the cougars (and wolves) have helped SRD out were us humans couldn't .. esp if the elk population is now deemed stable to increasing ...

The other thing we are not including in all of this discussion is .. what are the other sources of depopulation - how many wolves are in the area and how are they utilizing the elk as a food source, how many elk migrated to different areas, how many elk were killed on the roadways, how many elk died during some of those harse winters ... not saying i have the answers, just saying you really need to look at the entire picture, all possible sources of population decliine before any one can be singled out as the main contributing factor.

[jryley]

Dont think killing the cats is the answer fellas. I dont have the opinion that us hunting various game is a right, but rightful privilege if that makes any sense. The cats were there before us, as were the elk. Id say closing the season for elk would make more sense than repeating the cycle of shoot elk. Then shoot cats. Then shoot elk. Then shoot cats and so on. We dont need to have
Our hands in every aspect of wildlife management. Kind of a vicious cycle.

You can kind of correlate this to the deer numbers out east. Cwd results in increased tags allocated. Now we all complain about lack of deer in these parts....so what are we going to do? Issue fewer tags, we will see an increase in cwd simply due to the increase in deer numbers, and then we are going to revert right back to issueing more tags. Natural balance in my opinion is the key.

[smith88]

Originally Posted by jryley

Dont think killing the cats is the answer fellas. I dont have the opinion that us hunting various game is a right, but rightful privilege if that makes any sense. The cats were there before us, as were the elk. Id say closing the season for elk would make more sense than repeating the cycle of shoot elk. Then shoot cats. Then shoot elk. Then shoot cats and so on. We dont need to have
Our hands in every aspect of wildlife management. Kind of a vicious cycle.

You can kind of correlate this to the deer numbers out east. Cwd results in increased tags allocated. Now we all complain about lack of deer in these parts....so what are we going to do? Issue fewer tags, we will see an increase in cwd simply due to the increase in deer numbers, and then we are going to revert right back to issueing more tags. Natural balance in my opinion is the key.

That is the way animal populations work. There are peaks in their populations and then valleys. If there was no hunting, CWD would have even a wider affect due to the higher populations. There are three major factors in the population of all living things:

-amount of food available
-severity of weather
-amount of predation

The reason there was such good trophy mule deer hunting in south eastern Alberta in the early 2000's was because of a series of easy winters, adequate food and reduced numbers of tags given out for several years as wells as reduced natural predation.

In the last 4 or 5 years there was an increase of tags given out, increased predation and some harder winters. This resulted in a decrease in population.

If the cougars kill and eat all of their natural food sources, their population will decrease.

The goal of game management is to take out the extreme highs and extreme lows of in a population. Even the best biologist cannot eliminate the population swings because too many of the factors are out of their hands.


It is a fact of life.

[scrapper]

Wrong again the migration between the two provinces plays a huge roll, the Sask side has even had a spring cow hunt to slow down the population growth, the existing habitat can only support so many elk. The pasture degredation problems in sask caused by the cypress hills elk population is enormous. Both provinces Alberta and Sask have agreed for many years the elk population is too high. That is again a fact both provinces will confirm. Have you ever been out in a pasture that the Elk have destroyed....I have...cattle and bison will graze the grass Elk eat the grass right down to the root and kill the plant. So if your wondering why you don't hear the area ranchers screaming about this hocus pocus BS theory of a Cougar behind every bush were all laughing about. Well they just aren't that concerned, the ranchers know the cougars don't threaten livestock for the most part, they also know the cougars primary food source is deer and if by chance they take a few elk well that is OK with them too.

As much as you want to convince us that your now infamous "cougar behind every bush theory" is responsible for the Elk population decline in the Cypress hills. Guess what no one with any common sense is going to eat that BS. What we have here is a couple city dwelling gun toten knuckle draggin gortex cowboys who have decided they know best and we as a society have to wipe out a small sustainable cougar population in an area that has been populated by cougars for hundreds of years. They both feel as being human beings they and they only are entitled to the harvest of the Elk in that region. The first guy starts off with some stupid mindless comment that the cougars are the idiots here, hmmm, then every post he made after that just confirmed to all the rest of us who the real idiot is....hmmm.... yah we all figured it out on our own, the written evidence was pretty compelling..... Then some one who professes to be a bambikiller of all things chimes in to tell us how 30 Cougars killed and consumed 900 elk over 5 years. Then he wants he wants to send us all a 88 page study that tells us the Cypress Hills cougar population relies mainly on the deer herd as it's souce of food.

Hmmm !! does any one else see the flawed logic here.....in any event if someone wants to come on here and start a rant about cougars destroying the Elk population in an area that I have been frequenting for the past 40 odd years...well you won't have to ask twice for my opinion, I will get my dog in that fight every single time.

[smith88]

900/30 = 30/5 = 6

6 elk a year is nothing for a 150lb carnivore.

[smith88]

Migration does not affect population. The herd that went to Saskatchewan will be replaced by another herd that was in Saskatchewan that thought the grass was greener in Alberta.

[pikergolf]

Doesn't seem like a stretch to me either, I have found two possible elk kills both yearlings both close to ressor lake. The one area rancher that I'd talked to told me the elk have definantly change there behaviour, and I forget who told me the deer are far more in the open now. All I see is a real decline in deer numbers.

[scrapper]

Well figure this into your math, THE PRIMARY FOOD SOURCE OF THE CYPRESS HILLS COUGAR POPULATION IS MULE DEER.....get it....mule deer not elk. That means the Cougar did not kill the 900 elk as suggested by bambikiller.

However using your math and Michelle Bacons findings that only 15% of the food source is elk then, those 900 missing elk are only 15% of the population that means that in 2002 the population was 6000, so actually there is an elk behind every tree not a cougar.
Of course we can spin it the other way and assume they kill two deer for every elk taken just to match the over all weight in meat, mule deer to elk. So it would stand to reason that if the 900 elk represents 15% of the population killed by the cougars, the number of mule deer making up the other 85% of the food source would equate to 33,600 times two to get the weight factor the same, wow a wopping 67,200 deer...plus the 900 elk. Those are some mean well fed twenty or thirty cougars.

This thread has turned into a bizaar math problem. And to think it all started by someone acusing the Cypress Hills cougars as being ignorant and responsible for wiping out the Cypress Elk herd.....that by the way is actually doing just fine. Gotta love this forum.

[pikergolf]

Bizaar is right.

[mulecrazy]

Shake your head if you think the cougars had nothing to do with the reduction of the Elk herds. I hunt those elk with a guy who knows the herd patterns better than anyone else in the area. He knows for a fact I have seen it change in my 10 years of hunting them. Their patterns have changed in the past couple of years and as a result their population has stabilized and is coming back up. Herds that used to live and bed in the park and wandered out in the night to feed on the surrounding fields are no longer doing this. We watched a herd of about 80 head 3 years ago that had maybe 5 or 6 calves in it. Last fall we watched a herd in the same field that numbered over 100 and had nearly a calf for every cow. And unlike 5 or 6 years ago when that herd would be back in the park by sunrise, they stayed out in the praire all day long. They know the cats are in the treed areas and they are much safer in the open. This is not the only herd that has changed its habits. 2 other herds we hunt regularly have also changed their habits dramatically.

And to the dude who claims the elk destroy the pastrures. ROFLMAO. On the alberta side there are areas where it is so over grazed by the cows that it is as smooth as a putting green. The elk don't feed there but the cows are left in there until october.

And yes, the population of Elk 8 years ago was extremely high and they were trying to reduce it. 2 years ago the population of the whole elk herd (which is what they base numbers on, not just which side of the border they are on) was actually below their target and technically there should not have been a season at all. They just cut tag numbers way back.

[smith88]

Originally Posted by scrapper

Well figure this into your math, THE PRIMARY FOOD SOURCE OF THE CYPRESS HILLS COUGAR POPULATION IS MULE DEER.....get it....mule deer not elk. That means the Cougar did not kill the 900 elk as suggested by bambikiller.

However using your math and Michelle Bacons findings that only 15% of the food source is elk then, those 900 missing elk are only 15% of the population that means that in 2002 the population was 6000, so actually there is an elk behind every tree not a cougar.
Of course we can spin it the other way and assume they kill two deer for every elk taken just to match the over all weight in meat, mule deer to elk. So it would stand to reason that if the 900 elk represents 15% of the population killed by the cougars, the number of mule deer making up the other 85% of the food source would equate to 33,600 times two to get the weight factor the same, wow a wopping 67,200 deer...plus the 900 elk. Those are some mean well fed twenty or thirty cougars.

This thread has turned into a bizaar math problem. And to think it all started by someone acusing the Cypress Hills cougars as being ignorant and responsible for wiping out the Cypress Elk herd.....that by the way is actually doing just fine. Gotta love this forum.

If you knew how to do math then you would figure out that 15% of the cougars diet was elk reported by Michelle. If 15% is 900 elk then there was 6000 animal kills which is 5100 that could be deer, turkey, porcupine and all the other stuff that she found.

[walking buffalo]

For those who are truely interested in learning about Cougar/prey relationships, this study released last year is a worthwhile read, likely the most complete cougar diet study ever compiled.

Cougar Predation in a Multi-Prey System in West-Central Alberta

http://s3.amazonaws.com/zanran_stora...s/98189165.pdf

CHAPTER 4
COUGAR KILL RATE AND PREY COMPOSITION IN A MULTI-PREY SYSTEM: INFLUENCE OF SEASON, DEMOGRAPHY, AND PREY VULNERABILITY

"Cougar kill rate averaged 0.8 ungulates/week"

Review the Prey percentage chart on Page 109.

Adult Males prefer Large ungulates (Moose, Elk, Horses) over small sized ungulates ( Deer, sheep) and non-ungulate prey. Adult male cougars can and do influence Large ungulate populations.

[CHIPPAB]

Hi KI-UTE,

Please understand that as a Park, our objectives with the hunt is to maintain the Elk population at a designated level that balances rancher concerns outside the park (elk eating hay on rancher lands), other stakeholders, and ecological health (including grassland health, prey availability, genetic pool, etc). It's primary purpose is not to maintain a recreational hunt, but to run a management one when needed.

I've reviewed our hunt data back to 1978, and our running average winter surveyed population is within 5% of our target. Average (mean) Park kills is 100.6 per year; mean hunter success is 45%. There is considerable variability year to year, largely driven by weather. There have been two 'bumps' in population between 1997-2005 and 1985-91, and consequently there were more hunter days and weeks. This year there are 40 tags each week for four weeks.

And to be clear, Parks relies heavily on the expertise of ESRD to do the surveying, set quotas etc. Based on the results I've quoted here, they are doing an excellent job; the population of elk is exactly where we want it to be.

Again, recreational hunting is not the primary purpose - a provincial park is a complex place with many different user groups that need to be balanced. For example, the September-October period still has school groups tromping through the park; December we're skiing; ranchers get cranky when populations get high, and much of the wintering habitat is on their land, not in parks.

So I think it is unfair to characterize our management as mismangement; it is quite the opposite. We stand beside our record, and that of our colleagues in ESRD. And we look forward to welcoming the new hunters this year.

Sincerely,

Peter Swain
District Manager
Cypress Hills Interprovincial Park-ab

[Scales]

This link says there are 6 cougars per square km. That would be more than 15 per section of land (square mile).

http://cpaws-sask.org/campaigns/cypr...ougar-research

[IR_mike]

Originally Posted by Scales

This link says there are 6 cougars per square km. That would be more than 15 per section of land (square mile).

http://cpaws-sask.org/campaigns/cypr...ougar-research

Government agencies sometimes do not hire the best people.

That link is a fine example of that.

Think nepotisim or.....just dumb people hireing people they can relate to.

A solitary apex predator like a cougar would kill each other out at such densities long before it would deplete its food sources.

[saddleup]

I just spent 12 days riding horseback in the Center Block.. 6 cougars per sq km is absurd...... I saw plenty of game cameras, evidence of one cougar in camp, but 6 per sq km as the link suggests we would have , shud have seen a cat every time we left camp... it didnt happen... I think all the COUGARS, the study team was referencing were in town at the bar..... another prime example of how our tax money is wasted...

[ishootbambi]

Originally Posted by Scales

This link says there are 6 cougars per square km. That would be more than 15 per section of land (square mile).

http://cpaws-sask.org/campaigns/cypr...ougar-research

may i suggest it was a typo and not just a bunch of hooey? i think the author there possibly meant 6 per 100 km square. from michelle bacons research i quote......

At the completion of my 3-year study, data from radiocollars, wildlife cameras and snowtracking has helped me to identify 15 to 20 adult cougars and at least that many kittens/juveniles in Cypress Hills Interprovincial Park. In this isolated patch of habitat, the cougar population exploded within a decade to a density of 6.5-8.25 cougars/100km2.

When you have pictures, hair samples and other means to prove for a fact that there are certainly more than 30, its pretty tough to put any credence into a purely emotional response like this.....

Originally Posted by scrapper

an ego system that even an idiot would know could not support 25 full time just based on the kinown cougar territory and range. )

[ishootbambi]

now yesterday, i offered this...

Originally Posted by ishootbambi

pm me an email address and ill send you along a copy of the results of michelles study. sounds like you could use some reading on the subject.

and was told this.

Originally Posted by scrapper

Yes I have gone to hear Michelle speak on more than one occassion last time at the college, read all her work ....


the cougars have been there for thirty years or longer and they feed almost exclusively on mule deer. .

and again this...

Originally Posted by scrapper

. Add to that a four year study done by Michelle Bacon that clearly states the main food source for the Cypress Hill cougar population is MULE DEER and small game such as rabbits.

michelles study was 3 years, and this is what she found.....

Cattle graze inside the park during the summer and on adjacent land year-round and are thus easily available prey items. However, cougars preferred wild ungulates; deer (Odocoileus sp.) accounted for 76% of prey items at GPS clusters and nearly 50% of biomass from scat samples. This is similar to most cougar studies in North America where their primary prey are ungulate species (Murphy and Ruth 2010). Cougars in the Cypress Hills were preying on white-tailed deer (O. virginianus) at a higher frequency than mule deer (O. hemionus) (59% and 26% of deer kills, respectively).

now i offered before to send you a copy of this complete study so you could learn from it rather than making stuff up in your own head. if you want to have an intelligent discussion about it, get some facts.....otherwise you just appear foolish.

dale

[singleshotom]

A few years ago my son got drawn and we hunted pretty hard, saw a small herd a couple of times but either to far or to fast for a young guy to try the shot. There was only one cow elk taken that particular hunt.
Anyway I read here about the cougar eating elk and deer in the park but the year we were hunting there we saw far more Moose then elk. And I haven't read a word (unless I missed it) about the cougars taking the moose.
Its my experience that if there is a moose in the area and a herd of elk the local cougar will take a lot more moose then elk.....
So if these cougar are so bad in the park now there must be absolutely no moose left..
Anyone know if the moose have been cleaned out or for some strange reason do the cougars refuse to eat moose in the south?
SST

[ishootbambi]

Originally Posted by singleshotom

Anyone know if the moose have been cleaned out or for some strange reason do the cougars refuse to eat moose in the south?
SST

michelle bacons research showed no evidence of even one moose kill by a cougar. there is no explanation. as far as moose popualtions at cypress, i know of no actual study or count, but from what i have seen, they are by my eye, about as many as there ever have been.

[ishootbambi]

i guess for all the info i have provided in this thread, i should maybe offer up something for the op....

although the elk numbers are down from the peak of the early 2000s, the herd seems to be around the target number, which unofficially seems to be around 600 for the entire park which includes saksatchewan. no one seems willing to confirm that 600 number for sure, but that is the number that gets tossed around most. that is still quite a few for such a small area.

i dont know if you have hunted there before or not, but cypress elk arent known for getting very big. hunting pressure there is about as dense as it gets in this province. i think only wainwright might be higher. anyway, there is usually one 330-350 bull killed every 2 to 3 years, but 300 is generally considered a pretty good bull in there. those elk are very educated about hunters and how to avoid them, but with some homework, you can be successful. the nicest part is that if you draw a tag for inside the park, there is tons of places to look without having to beg for permission. most area landowners are pretty good about it, but the best places have been charging for access for a long time. pm me if you want some tips.

[winger7mm]

Originally Posted by scrapper

Well figure this into your math, THE PRIMARY FOOD SOURCE OF THE CYPRESS HILLS COUGAR POPULATION IS MULE DEER.....get it....mule deer not elk. That means the Cougar did not kill the 900 elk as suggested by bambikiller.

However using your math and Michelle Bacons findings that only 15% of the food source is elk then, those 900 missing elk are only 15% of the population that means that in 2002 the population was 6000, so actually there is an elk behind every tree not a cougar.
Of course we can spin it the other way and assume they kill two deer for every elk taken just to match the over all weight in meat, mule deer to elk. So it would stand to reason that if the 900 elk represents 15% of the population killed by the cougars, the number of mule deer making up the other 85% of the food source would equate to 33,600 times two to get the weight factor the same, wow a wopping 67,200 deer...plus the 900 elk. Those are some mean well fed twenty or thirty cougars.

This thread has turned into a bizaar math problem. And to think it all started by someone acusing the Cypress Hills cougars as being ignorant and responsible for wiping out the Cypress Elk herd.....that by the way is actually doing just fine. Gotta love this forum.

You sure do like to use that sentence alot, Fact of the matter is a cougar is an opportunistic hunter. Say the cougar is slinking along and a small herd of elk is spotted, the cougar is hungry and there is a young cow elk minding her own business a lil to far away from the main group, the cougar is gonna think, "well I may as well pass this chance at a meal up cause MY primary food source is deer". Pull your head outta the sand. I know its a different area but while chasing wolves in 400 and 402, I came across 6 different kill sites of elk. ALL were from cougars. Ranging from that years caves, to the years before to prime cow elk. Like I said before opportunistic hunters, if they are hungry, they will go after usually the first animal they come across and one that they can attack. To think they dont go after elk due to other game being around is a very jaded way of thinking. Im sure there are a few ranchers on here who have had cougars attack a horse or two in the past, look at a horses size compared to an elk or deer. Its all about place and time. Just like a guy who is hunting deer for meat, usually the first doe that gives a good shot is taken, now why is that???

[scrapper]

Talking about foolish...look pal it wasn't me on here blaming the death of 900 elk on 20 - 30 Cougars...that was you. Don't be pointing fingers at me suggesting I made up anything, I was not the one who called cougars ignorant, I was not the one who blamed the 900 animal population decline on cougars.

I knew all along Michelles findings showed the primary food source for the cougar population is mule deer, I knew all along the Elk population is just fine and is being well managed, I knew the Sask side was seeing a rapid increase in the population on that side of the border.

My main point here was to refute any claim being made that the Elk population was being negatively affected buy the small sustainable Cougar population. There is absolutely no evidance of that happening and no one can argue that fact. The Elk population is just fine and there is no need to worry about the cougars their numbers will be self regulated by the available habitat just like they have been for the last 100 years.

If you are on this forum making stupid comments like cougars are ignorant or cougars are responsible for the death of 900 elk then prepare to be challenged, those at not facts and the people making those claims are ones that look like fools.

The very first post in this thread was absolutely designed to trigger strong responses and that is what happened, it was at the very least a stupid remark that reflects poorly on it's author. The rest of it just went down hill from there.

The simple fact of the matter that both Bambi killer and I can agree on is that the Elk population in that are is just fine, its management is going good, the cougars presence is noted and does have an effect on all the prey animals elk included. However the elk population is not being threatened by the small cougar population at this time......can we at least agree on that statement.

[ishootbambi]

^^^ you are arguing with too many people at once. you read my last post right? mule deer are NOT the number one food source of cougars. cougars, absolutely contributed to the elk decline....but they arent solely responsible. i never called cats stupid and ignorant....the entire population is counted as 1, not separated into AB and SK....

Originally Posted by scrapper

I knew all along Michelles findings showed the primary food source for the cougar population is mule deer, .

i showed you a direct quote from michelles research showing that to be untrue. what i didnt quote was that at the end of her research period, whitetail number were increasing in spite of cougar predation.

you need to slow down, take a breath and stop allowing your emotions to run wild in the face of logic. this stuff isnt that hard to grasp.

and to be clear....never did i say that the elk are being threatened by cougars. the numbers definitely went down, but have stabilized and from what i understand seem to be on the upswing again. i wish CHIPPAB would come on back with a number for this years herd. i know where to find it, but honestly i dont want to talk to that guy.

[scrapper]

Frankly you have done complete flip flopped on the issue from your earlier posts. You went from supporting the fact the cougars were a major problem to suggesting they are not. Michelles findings are factual from those facts we can draw conclusions. One conclusion we can draw on her research is that the Elk population is not threatened by the cougars, yes it may be affected but not threatened. Honestly why can you just not admit that? You have the report in front of you I do not, I will however suggest that from listening to her speak she never once stated that the Cougars were having a detrimental effect on the Elk population. Why is so hard for you just to admit, the Cougars are there and will be the forseeable future, the Elk population is doing just fine.

Look pal I have been right all along on this issue, the fact the elk population is stable( by your own admission) confirms that. Your attempts to discredit my arguement by using snipets of information from Michelles findings do nothing to change the fact that the cougar population has not had a detrimental effect on the Elk population in the Cypress hills. That has been my point all along, all the hard facts support that arguement.

[ishootbambi]

Originally Posted by scrapper

Frankly you have done complete flip flopped on the issue from your earlier posts. You went from supporting the fact the cougars were a major problem to suggesting they are not.

.

you have spewed an awful pile of bullsnot in this thread. im guessing that most of your info comes from coffe shop row rather than actual fact. thats ok, lots of guys do that, but dont tell mistruths about me or what i said. lets go on back and have a gander at what i said in my very first post in this thread which was post #10.

Originally Posted by ishootbambi

1500ish in 2002 down to 600ish in 2007. nope, the explosion of cougars had nothing to do with that.


you are also correct that the elk are again on the rise. when the cats first blew up in numbers, the elk didnt know how to deal with them. they are learning though. deer too.

the evidence shows quite clearly that as the cougar population rapidly grew, the elk numbers plunged. lately, they have stabilized, and from what i understand are again rising. thats the quote.....show me where i said the elk were threatened. you might be confusing me with someone else.

Originally Posted by scrapper

One conclusion we can draw on her research is that the Elk population is not threatened by the cougars, yes it may be affected but not threatened. Honestly why can you just not admit that? .

maybe because i never said that......

Originally Posted by scrapper

I have been right all along .

no, i have provided plenty of evidence showing you to be very wrong on more than one point.

Originally Posted by scrapper

. Your attempts to discredit my arguement by using snipets of information from Michelles findings do nothing to change the fact that the cougar population has not had a detrimental effect on the Elk population in the Cypress hills. That has been my point all along, all the hard facts support that arguement.

actually, michelles evidence says that you are very wrong. her findings go directly against most of what you have been peddling in this thread. if you wish to learn a few things based on actual fact rather than just heated emotions, i have offered more than once to send you (or anyone else for that matter) a copy of michelles thesis. your passion tells me that you are a caring devoted outdoorsmen, which i applaud.....however, you would have more credibility using facts in your arguments.

Originally Posted by scrapper

Look pal .

we arent pals. i dont know you.

[Icefisher2885]

I've also read the study, and am familiar with the decline of elk in the area. My thoughts are firmly in line with those of ISB on this one. I've seen first hand the insane influx of cougars in my hunting area, both through actual sightings and a large increase in tracks. That, along with the 7 dead calf and yearling elk I found BURIED (hard to miss that smell when you walk by) in my hunting areas this past season.

As for thinking that lots of cougar sightings are just coyotes, well, the cougar that charged into my elk calls and didn't stop until it was 15 feet away from me this past September sure as hell wasn't a coyote, and I'm damn sure that it wasn't coyotes that killed, drug, and buried those elk either.

[ishootbambi]

Originally Posted by Icefisher2885

As for thinking that lots of cougar sightings are just coyotes, well, the cougar that charged into my elk calls and didn't stop until it was 15 feet away from me this past September sure as hell wasn't a coyote, and I'm damn sure that it wasn't coyotes that killed, drug, and buried those elk either.

wouldnt it be sweet if they had done that cougar season right and allowed it all fall? i guess their thinking was to get the gun guys to get things done, but in reality, i think the archers would have a better chance. lets be serious....most gun guys are driving fly lake road praying or pushing bush, while most archers are lying in wait while hiding. given cougar habits, i suspect archers would actually get a few as opposed to the 3 or whatever it was province-wide. i would have loved to see pics of you holding one with a broadhead hole in it.

[pikergolf]

Just for interest there is a sign up at the entrance to Police Point Park in Medicne Hat, Cougar Sighting.