Sad day in the praries

[packhuntr]

Originally Posted by gunslinger

I was down on two differetn hunts by the base last year and the herds seemed good, i am in no way even remotely up to snuff on the southern zones other than thats alot of tags in the extreme southern zones and am reading closely but sorry for my ignorance pack but what the heck does ACA and AMA stand for i only belong to one ama and it doestn involve hunting.

Hey Gunslinger, ACA= Alberta Conservation Assn. AMA= Antelope Management Area

[gunslinger]

Originally Posted by packhuntr

Hey Gunslinger, ACA= Alberta Conservation Assn. AMA= Antelope Management Area

Thank you

[wildlifebio]

Originally Posted by packhuntr

I was in a hurry and misread this morning. I now see you said 566 doe tags, but what of your "couple hundred trophy tags"? Is that correct? You may want to have a look at some numbers, dont be scared to go back afew years. Then maybe explain to me why it is that we need to decimate certain zones while others are held at low tag counts. Is that sound management, or job justification? If you look at the numbers you will see exactly what Im talking about. You guys build them up and knock them down, these zones/ama's are in constant wave motion, except now a bad winter hit while you guys had evrything low.

Hi packhuntr,

I've did as you said and summarized the # of tags for trophy and non-trophy antelope. All information is from http://www.mywildalberta.com/Hunting...2000-2009.aspx
I haven’t included archery tags as I suspect success rates are much lower than those of rifle hunters and therefore aren’t a big factor. Unfortunately, some of the links to pre-2000 data are invalid so these numbers are unavailable, but I do believe there was no non-trophy antelope season during the years 1998 to 2000. This is not surprising as during this time period Saskatchewan closed there seasons completely from 1997 to 2001 because of low numbers. However, numbers across the range have recovered to the point where both Saskatchewan and Alberta have reopened a non-trophy season.

Looking at the tag data it is possible harvest numbers were too high for non-trophy in 2004 and 2005, but it seems tags were reduced in the subsequent years following to increase numbers. Perhaps this is what you are referring to by mis-management? However, to me it appears tag numbers have fluctuated over time which indicates tag allocations are being adjusted to reflect population changes and new management information. Sure, it is possible over-harvest of does may have been a contributing factor to a potential decline during a time period such as 2004 to 2005, but there are also several other factors such as an increased human disturbance on the landscape due to the oil and gas boom that may have played just as an important role in any potential population declines during this time. Furthermore, concern over the harvest of bucks is only somewhat justified as population levels are far more dependent on does than bucks; therefore its highly unlikely harvest of bucks would lead to the extreme population crashes you believe are occurring.

In any case, the point of my previous post and this post is just to provide concrete data and information to those interested so they can form their own opinion regarding pronghorn management in Alberta. You obviously have your own opinion on the subject and I respect your passion towards the issue; however, I don’t think all the information you were providing was totally accurate and therefore I just wanted to provide some factual information so people could come to their own conclusions. My other point was to raise awareness that hunting and winter-kill are not nescessisarily the key threats to long term pronghorn survival in Alberta, but rather it is habitat loss and habitat fragmentation. I believe its these issues that needs more attention from passionate sportsmen such as me and you if we are to sustain this species in Alberta. We need more projects like the AFGA pronghorn fencing projects and fewer proposal to sell grasslands to potato farms and such

[walking buffalo]

Originally Posted by packhuntr

I was in a hurry and misread this morning. I now see you said 566 doe tags, but what of your "couple hundred trophy tags"? Is that correct? You may want to have a look at some numbers, dont be scared to go back afew years. Then maybe explain to me why it is that we need to decimate certain zones while others are held at low tag counts. Is that sound management, or job justification? If you look at the numbers you will see exactly what Im talking about. You guys build them up and knock them down, these zones/ama's are in constant wave motion, except now a series of bad winters/springs hit while you guys had most everything low.

Maybe the herds are migrating to different wmu's?

I just don't get your feelings of severe mis-management of Pronghorns in Alberta. Look at the population surveys over the last century. It is pretty clear that we have never had more than 20,000 pronghorns as a peak population. The bio's have been pretty good at getting the herds back up in numbers after severe winters. I've seen a few cycles where pronghorns have gone from 20k to 5k due to winterkill, and after a few years the herds have rebounded, thanks to some carefull management.

I don't like the high number of tags issued in specific wmu's some years, such as NT tags in 104/106/112 last year, or 144 in 2009. I have the feeling that each year specific units get picked to issue excesively high tag numbers, for the purpose of reducing the volume of hunters in the draw system. These areas do not experience a decimation of pronghorns from the high hunting pressure, as harvest rates drop with high hunter density. But the quality of the hunting experience sure takes a s-kicking.

[wildlifebio]

Originally Posted by packhuntr

I was in a hurry and misread this morning. I now see you said 566 doe tags, but what of your "couple hundred trophy tags"? Is that correct? You may want to have a look at some numbers, dont be scared to go back afew years. Then maybe explain to me why it is that we need to decimate certain zones while others are held at low tag counts. Is that sound management, or job justification? If you look at the numbers you will see exactly what Im talking about. You guys build them up and knock them down, these zones/ama's are in constant wave motion, except now a series of bad winters/springs hit while you guys had most everything low.

Hi packhunter,

I may have mis-took what you were saying here, and you may have misunderstood what I meant by a "couple hundred tags". I was speaking in general terms, perhaps I should have been more specific. You are correct some WMUs have over 350 trophy tags, but for the most part there isn't a lot of tags when you look at the size of the area. Furthermore, as I said above its not the # of bucks that effects the reproductive succuess and long term stability of a population.

With respect to the number of tags per WMU, I can't tell you for sure why this occurs, but can guarantee is not for "job justification" as I assure you setting tag allocations is only a small part of an SRD biologists job. I suspect these allocations are based on a # of things including yearly aerial survey data and AMA size. Furthermore, pronghorn do move around and migrate a lot more than we think so its possible tags are increased for certain years because the AMA has more animals than in the past. But overall looking at tag allocations over time it seems distribution of tags is fairly consistent over time with numbers fluctuating in conjunction with population counts. Specifically, AMA C, AMA H, and AMA Ghave always had the highest tag numbers. I suspect this is because AMA C has the highest densities of pronghorn so it can sustain a higher harvest. AMA H doe have lower densities than other areas, but it is a much larger area so harvest is distributed over a much larger area and therefore is more sustainable. Similalrly AMA G & F have realtively higher densisites and more area so they likely too can sustain higher harvests. I've attached the data in a pdf (sorry for those without Adobe reader but I couldn't get it to compress enough in size to post as a picture and still be readable).

[gramps73]

Any up date on the condition of the Antelope with this extended cold snap?

[Icefisher2885]

Seem to be doing a bit better in some of the areas I frequent since we never got much snow since the last chinook. In my coyote hunting areas they are really confined to certain locations where the grass is poking through. Seems like you see 100 miles of barren ground then 2 miles with 500 antelope. Haven't been finding as many dead ones - Ill be heading out again today to do some tromping around and Ill update tonight.

[yoteman]

I was at the sports and leisure show in Saskatoon yesterday. I stopped by the Sask. conservation booth ( conservation Officers ) and was bull ****ing with them about the winter kill in Alberta that I read on this forum. One c.o. said they had 8 calls today about dead deer in farm yards and in fields. He told me this is one of worst years on record for the amount of wildlife dying, and it's not going to get any better. The forecast for Sask. is a long cold March and April, apparently the coldest on record since the 1800's. Here in Sask. we get about 25 % of our precipation in the month of March, it's going to be a log cold spring and we're going to have a lot of flooding due to a quick thaw. Another bad year for the farmers seeding.

[Almer Fudd]

Does anyone know how the Elk are wintering around Suffield and north to the river?

[Icefisher2885]

Just got in from the stomping grounds, things seem to be a bit better as I only saw 3 dead antelope. I saw a ton of deer today and they looked as good as could be - didnt appear to be too thin, even the fawns. Ran into 16 yotes from 11 to 3 so there is certainly no shortage of them.

[big-river]

A good friend was working on a Seismic Program out by the Hat just a while ago.
The antelope were being decimated by the coyotes, the deep snow and lack of feed were doign them in, large numbers dying. He told me the antelope would rather stand on the road and take their chances with the traffic than go out in the fields.
He figured that when we plowed out the Seismic lines, the antelope would greatly benefit as they could get to some browse and have a chance to get away from the coyotes who would lose their advantage of running on the snow. There was 500 kms of Seismic Lines to plow and this would have sure helped out the problem. The only trouble was......Fish and Wildlife. They shut down the Seismic Program saying the plowing would be too stressful for the antelope. They STOPPED the plowing, and the antelope continue to die daily.
Does this make sense to anyone else out there?

I remember a harsh winter a few years back, most deer had shed their antlers early. I went on a Deer Counting Survey with Fish and Wildlife as a counter, the biologist gave me a clipboard with the Count Chart attached. There was a category for Antlered and one for Antlerless. This count was in mid-February. I told her that ad already found a duffel bag full of antlers from this year, wouldn't the Game survey be skewed if we counted bucks with shed antlers as antlerless? She told me that deer wouldn't shed that early and to count every deer without antlers as antlerless.
So of course, the survey was way out of whack with reality, and the next season, after a major winterkill and reduction in deer numbers, she announced a two doe season in the areas that we surveyed. No one could believe it.
Shortly after that she was promoted to Edmonton where she continues to practise her witchcraft for Fish and Wildlife.

Shameful.

[Icefisher2885]

Originally Posted by big-river

A good friend was working on a Seismic Program out by the Hat just a while ago.
The antelope were being decimated by the coyotes, the deep snow and lack of feed were doign them in, large numbers dying. He told me the antelope would rather stand on the road and take their chances with the traffic than go out in the fields.
He figured that when we plowed out the Seismic lines, the antelope would greatly benefit as they could get to some browse and have a chance to get away from the coyotes who would lose their advantage of running on the snow. There was 500 kms of Seismic Lines to plow and this would have sure helped out the problem. The only trouble was......Fish and Wildlife. They shut down the Seismic Program saying the plowing would be too stressful for the antelope. They STOPPED the plowing, and the antelope continue to die daily.
Does this make sense to anyone else out there?

This is a bloody shame. The antelope would benefit from anything that allowed them to get some access to grass - although I understand that F&W may not have wanted them to be stressed, they should realize that the benefit far outweighs the negative in this case! Doesn't take much to see that they are all hoarded into small areas where there is a few blades of grass sticking through - clearly more exposed ground could only help. Oh well...what can do you I guess - its not you and me who make the decisions unfortunately.

[ishootbambi]

so where exactly are you seeing this carnage? i work out there every day and have seen very few winterkills considering the weather. there are always a few that dont make the winter....thats just normal. nowhere though have i seen anything unusual. in fact, the suffield base likely holds among the highest concentration of the beasts, yet i havent seen a single carcass there. the animals are herded up for sure.....one group has to be around 500, but i havent seen more than 3 dead in the base since new years.

[gramps73]

Bambi,
I don't live down south or any where you can find any antelope. I have a P-7 for my trophy and a 5 for both my archery and non trophy, i was thinking this might be the year i draw a tag but with all these reports i don't think so..
You are saying that you are not seeing anything out of the usual as far as winter kill..
thanks for the help.
g73

[ishootbambi]

for sure there are a few dropping here and there, but i am not seeing anything unexpected. the thing with antelope in particular is that they herd up in HUGE groups at this time of year. if some die, they tend to do it in the same place. if you have never seen it before, 10 dead goats in one field might seem like a catastrophe, but if you look at the big picture it isnt all that bad. this extended winter we are having may mean a slightly higher winterkill, but having seen 36 winters here on the prairies, my opinion for now is that the sky isnt falling. them critters are tougher than a lot of people think.

as for this years hunt...i have already seen an absolute giant buck. for those drawing goat tags this year, pm me closer to hunting season and ill help out those i can.

[J.B.]

I agree with packhunter on the mismanagement...numbers were way down this yr when i took a buddy out with an archery tag, hard hunt but he did get one. im due for a tag next year, but will wait for the herd to rebound. WAY to many animals taken this year, and the winter is brutal down south. talked to to ian from the onefour and hes never seen this much snow down there, and theres been very little melting. it just keeps piling up. i do know some of the southern biologist, and have talked to them about the low numbers, and will continue to do so. hope for the best i guess....

[echo]

well hopefully there will still be some big ones left for this fall !

[madatter]

Originally Posted by ishootbambi

for sure there are a few dropping here and there, but i am not seeing anything unexpected. the thing with antelope in particular is that they herd up in HUGE groups at this time of year. if some die, they tend to do it in the same place. if you have never seen it before, 10 dead goats in one field might seem like a catastrophe, but if you look at the big picture it isnt all that bad. this extended winter we are having may mean a slightly higher winterkill, but having seen 36 winters here on the prairies, my opinion for now is that the sky isnt falling. them critters are tougher than a lot of people think.

as for this years hunt...i have already seen an absolute giant buck. for those drawing goat tags this year, pm me closer to hunting season and ill help out those i can.

Years ago the antelope herded up on the road to Rattlesnake Lake,hundreds of them hanging in the same general area the whole winter led to seeing a lot of dead lopes.....Dozens and dozens of them.
Even in the north city limits of the Hat people were seeing dead lopes laying around. As ISB says when they concentrate up it makes for scenes like this,wether or not it is decimating the herds?...

[Sledhead71]

Originally Posted by ishootbambi

for sure there are a few dropping here and there, but i am not seeing anything unexpected. the thing with antelope in particular is that they herd up in HUGE groups at this time of year. if some die, they tend to do it in the same place. if you have never seen it before, 10 dead goats in one field might seem like a catastrophe, but if you look at the big picture it isnt all that bad. this extended winter we are having may mean a slightly higher winterkill, but having seen 36 winters here on the prairies, my opinion for now is that the sky isnt falling. them critters are tougher than a lot of people think.

as for this years hunt...i have already seen an absolute giant buck. for those drawing goat tags this year, pm me closer to hunting season and ill help out those i can.

ISB, you might want to take a closer look around, disposed of five dead goats this morning at the farm... I would estimate the mortality rate at 30 - 35% this winter..

Talked with F&W this past week, they will be limitting the tags for sure in 2011...

Mother nature can be a cruel b*&ch some times..

[brianmeyer]

Is that a lack of feed in ranching country or a parasite of some sort

[Icefisher2885]

Lack of feed is the main culprit in the areas I am frequenting. 95% of the grass is completely snow covered and the snow had a solid 3-5" thick ice crust on it. The ice crust is hard enough that I can jump up and down on it at 220lbs and not break through it so the antelope really don't have a hope.

The herd that I mentioned in the original post ultimately did not make it - every last one that I saw ended up dying. The herds that I've been seeing the last 2 weeks or so have managed to find the isolated pockets of grass that the chinook exposed and seem to be doing a fair bit better as I'm only sporadically finding dead ones now, and probably not more than what would be expected regardless of conditions.

The coyotes are probably having a tougher time bringing them down in my area because the ice crust on the snow is so thick that the antelope aren't breaking through and they don't appear to be having any trouble running on it. Despite that, coyotes are bird dogging the herds like you wouldn't believe - in my last 3 outings I've physically seen over 40 and have heard countless more during the course of calling. Luckily, I've managed to put the hammer down on a substantial portion of the 40 that I've saw. Just yesterday I found a pack of 7 feeding on a dead animal in a little draw, hit the pup distress and brought all 7 within 60 yards, managed to get 3 of them.

[shedcrazy]

I remember a harsh winter a few years back, most deer had shed their antlers early. I went on a Deer Counting Survey with Fish and Wildlife as a counter, the biologist gave me a clipboard with the Count Chart attached. There was a category for Antlered and one for Antlerless. This count was in mid-February. I told her that ad already found a duffel bag full of antlers from this year, wouldn't the Game survey be skewed if we counted bucks with shed antlers as antlerless? She told me that deer wouldn't shed that early and to count every deer without antlers as antlerless.
So of course, the survey was way out of whack with reality, and the next season, after a major winterkill and reduction in deer numbers, she announced a two doe season in the areas that we surveyed. No one could believe it.
Shortly after that she was promoted to Edmonton where she continues to practise her witchcraft for Fish and Wildlife

I have a hard time believing this as it is against any protocol I know of for ungulate surveys in Alberta. I have helped conduct surveys for 10+ yrs and NEVER have done any age/sex classification past the 2nd week of January. Even then we note bucks that have dropped as most bucks are grouped together and it is easy to ID bucks that have dropped. After mid-Jan all deer surveys are pure sps classification. All moose are age/sexed by making sure the vulva patch is seen on all antlerless animals. Of crse elk can be delayed a bit more as they tend to drop a lot later. Again the bulls look quite different from 300' and can be classified quite easily with or without antlers.

This winter will be a tough on the lopes and I sure hope we get some warm weather soon to open up the hills so they can feed. I returned from a trip down south and didn't see a lope but saw plenty of yotes running around.

[ishootbambi]

Originally Posted by Sledhead71

ISB, you might want to take a closer look around, disposed of five dead goats this morning at the farm... I would estimate the mortality rate at 30 - 35% this winter..

Talked with F&W this past week, they will be limitting the tags for sure in 2011...

Mother nature can be a cruel b*&ch some times..

i have been looking around lots.....i work in goat country every day. some die every winter, and like i said there is no question that when they die it is concentrated in a small area as the herds are huge at this time of year. to find 5 is nothing unusual.....and if the loca lherd numbers 200 the percentage is pretty small. estimates from what WE see, me included, dont mean much. srd will get a more accurate count in july. until then noone knows anything for sure.

[ram crazy]

Originally Posted by ishootbambi

so where exactly are you seeing this carnage? i work out there every day and have seen very few winterkills considering the weather. there are always a few that dont make the winter....thats just normal. nowhere though have i seen anything unusual. in fact, the suffield base likely holds among the highest concentration of the beasts, yet i havent seen a single carcass there. the animals are herded up for sure.....one group has to be around 500, but i havent seen more than 3 dead in the base since new years.

I didn't think anybody was allowed on the Base other than Military!!!!

[elkhunter11]

I didn't think anybody was allowed on the Base other than Military!!!!

Private contractors often work on military bases.

[big-river]

I promise you. We rode around in the helicoptor for a three day survey. We noted vulva patches on female moose, but we weren't allowed to note bucks with shed antlers.
After a very hard winter we were blessed with a one buck and two doe season throughout the 500 zones.
The reason was that the SRD Biologist figured we had too many antlerless deer based on that survey.
And I know that there was further surveys done in zones later than this.

[Sledhead71]

Originally Posted by ishootbambi

i have been looking around lots.....i work in goat country every day. some die every winter, and like i said there is no question that when they die it is concentrated in a small area as the herds are huge at this time of year. to find 5 is nothing unusual.....and if the loca lherd numbers 200 the percentage is pretty small. estimates from what WE see, me included, dont mean much. srd will get a more accurate count in july. until then noone knows anything for sure.

Well, I had about 100 wintering here, last count was near 70, very tough year on the goats. Even with hay around, they are having a tough time... Some trial cam of the weather they have been through this winter...

[bow]

I was watching a small herd here started with 17 last fall and now there are 3 left.I did take 140 some coyotes out of this area so hopefully it will help.

[Springer]

Originally Posted by bow

I was watching a small herd here started with 17 last fall and now there are 3 left.I did take 140 some coyotes out of this area so hopefully it will help.

I tip my hat to those Southern fellas that are doing their part to remove as much of the Coyote factor they can.The Winter in itself has been harsh enough.

2 years ago while Antelope hunting East of the Emerson campground and close to a feed lot ,I have never seen so many Yotes within a 5 km radius,wherever i looked.