Written by: Ken Sumanik
Paper Continued from: https://www.kwhf.ca/news-events/the-big-bad-wolf-how-big-and-how-bad
“What Happened to Our Big Game” was the topic of the KWH Symposium April 13, 2019. The question is yet to be answered. This information is presented as a reminder.
The great days of elk and moose hunting in the western States and Provinces is only a memory. During the 1950s in the southern Alberta Foothills it was common to see a 100 mule deer or more in a day of hunting and as many elk but my personal best was about 1000 in a single herd. Wolves were scarce or almost non existent as the government had poisoned canids, because of a rabies outbreak. Moose were very abundant in central and northern BC, particularly during the 1950s and 1960s, attributable in part to wolf control measures in the region. Following the end of areal baiting in 1964, wolf populations recovered quickly and moose populations began their decline. Food supply was not a limiting factor.
Wolves were eradicated in the US by the mid 1950s. Grizzly bears were also culled but a remnant population survived in YNP. Ungulates proliferated and their food supplies became a limiting factor for many populations. This required some feeding during severe winter conditions to ensure survival. When Canadian wolves were transplanted into YNP in 1995, they decimated elk and moose populations in the park. Surplus wolves dispersed onto the adjacent private lands where livestock were convenient prey.
Wolves dispersed from Kootenay National Park into the East Kootenay (EK) in the early 1990s and the decrease in the elk and moose populations began. By the beginning of the third millennium wolf predation became the major limiting factor. The ignorance of predation generally but wolf predation specifically in regulating ungulate populations is profound, drawing strong invective from those whose livelihoods were affected or threatened, particularly livestock owners and big game dependent people in ID, MT, WY and the EK.
Wolf predation combined with the annual elk harvest in the EK is remarkably similar asthe Lolo elk population collapse in ID as described by George Pauly and predicted by the late Dr. Tom Bergerud. A summary of five seasons of wolf culling in the Lolo Zone follows:
Source: https://youtu.be/eqpr0xoTp9E?t=539
The elk population decline began prior to 2000 and continued even with the removal of 48 wolves over a five-year period, 2009-2014
Source: https://youtu.be/eqpr0xoTp9E?t=250
This wolf reproductive rate as presented in this graph in explains why removing 48 wolves from the Lolo Zone was ineffectual.
Source: https://youtu.be/eqpr0xoTp9E?t=692
An elk population will not increase even with removing 70 per cent of a wolf population!
Source: https://youtu.be/eqpr0xoTp9E?t=799
The collapse of the Lolo elk herd took approximately 20 years, and it will take the same time or more for recovery provided an effective wolf control program is implemented.
Source: https://idahoforwildlife.com/index.php/research-data/idaho-elk-harvest-graphs-and-data
The 20-fold decrease in Elk harvest confirms the elk population collapse in Lolo Units 10 and 12. This is a classic Predator Pit as described by Dr. Tom Bergerud and Dr. Valerius Geist, a top-down population regulation factor similar to the one resulting in the near demise of caribou across Northern Canada. The impact of wolf and grizzly bear predation on moose and caribou in Alaska is devastating. It is a Predator Pit euphemistically referred to as a game population in a state of Low-Density Dynamic Equilibrium (LDDE).
Rocky Mountain Trench Spring Elk Carry-Over Count Summary - 1971-1983, 1996 - 2002
Data By: William J Warkentin
Calves per 100 adult cows are consistent at 37 per cent indicating a stable population from 1978 to 2002. These data are essential for managing a game population, and any recorded later than 2002 are presently unavailable. Wolf predation is presumed to have become a serious threat thereafter.
Game management information in BC is readily available but words are substituted for actual numbers so it is no longer possible to measure real changes in Game populations.
Source: https://tinyurl.com/bxne4ujj
Source: https://hctf.ca/
A Strategy to Help Restore Moose Populations in BC Restoration has been underway for five years now but data to measure actual progress in the recovery is unavailable. Numbers are available from the HCTF but are not the kind required to manage a game population.
Game Harvest results for moose and red deer in Norway, 2020-2021 are beyond belief as are those for roe deer and wild reindeer. The hunting tradition is alive and well in Norway.
See following links:
https://www.ssb.no/en/jord-skog-jakt-og-fiskeri/statistikker/elgjakt
https://www.ssb.no/en/jord-skog-jakt-og-fiskeri/statistikker/hjortejakt
https://www.ssb.no/en/jord-skog-jakt-og-fiskeri/statistikker/hjortavg
The combination of an abundant food supply created by timber harvesting, an almost complete absence of wolves and brown bears and a harvest of more younger animals than older ones, at a ratio of approximately 60:40 results in these outstanding harvests. Similar moose management is also practiced in Newfoundland. Both exemplify a bottom-up food related population regulation factor. It also applies in Quebec on Anticosti Island and in Nova Scotia on Cape Breton Island.
The dream of a more inclusive Wildlife Management agency has become a nightmare...a Rabbit Hole "Through the Looking Glass" experience the inventors might wish to have avoided. Centuries of history and experience of wolf predation on livestock and wild ungulates was passed off as oldish and outdated, replaced by more modern sophisticated knowledge and sophistry!
BC hunters demand explanations for the game management practices that have failed to sustain their game populations, and what is being done to be done to restore them.