Survey says?

by Danielle Switalski
| May 19, 2010 9:55 AM

Preparation for next fall's hunting season has already begun as area wildlife biologist Bruce Sterling recently finished his spring surveys to gauge the number of wildlife roaming the area.

The surveys produced positive results directly related to the mild winter as the survivability rate of wildlife were up from the past two years.

"It was nice to see a nice mild winter where we had a little more survivability particularly in the fawns and the calves, which is definitely a positive," said Sterling.

The spring survey took place in the middle of April as Sterling spent 30 hours in a helicopter scoping out areas 121, which is the hunting district west of Thompson Falls, and 123, the hunting district south of Thompson Falls.

In past years hunting district 124, the region south of Plains, was part of the surveys, however, due to budget constraints this area was not surveyed this year.

Sterling said not surveying district 124 could affect the number of antlerless licenses issued due to the lack of survey data, however, the number of antlerless licenses issued to this area are typically limited. This year, 25 licenses will be issued.

Sterling said the main purpose of the surveys are to get a handle on the number of animals seen on a yearly basis in order to get trends and classify the animals. The animals are broken down into groups of cow elk, elk calves, spike bull and brown tine bull.

"This gives us a recruitment rate of calves, which is the number of calves that survived the winter per 100 cows, and it also gives us a bull to cow ratio and trend information on how the population is doing over time," said Sterling.

An ideal calf to cow ratio would see the numbers of calves per 100 cows in the low to mid 30 range. This year in hunting district 121, the ratio was at 28, which said Sterling is a dramatic improvement from the numbers of the last two winters that were considerably lower.

"What you really see when you look at it in 121 is you see the effect of the harder winters we had in 08 and 09, and the effects of survival and a mild winter where you basically have no winter," said Sterling.

The number of calves to cows this year in district 123 was 18.

The number of B licenses issued for antlerless licenses, which are determined through these surveys, for hunting districts 122, 123 and 124 will be at 25 and for district 121 there will be 100 licenses issued.

Sterling said there is a change to the licenses this year. In past years, if a hunter had an antlerless permit, they could only kill an antlerless elk in a specific hunting district. This year, the department is issuing antlerless licenses and a hunter can essentially kill an antlerless elk on the license as well as a bull elk on the regular hunting license.

"If a guy draws one of these antlerless licenses or B license they can kill two elk and that's a big change and that's one reason the numbers are a little lower than what they could be because that's a new season structure and we are looking at how this will all play out," said Sterling.

Sterling also surveyed the number of mule deer in district 121, flying from Graves Creek through Green Mountain, which is north of Trout Creek. On the flight, Sterling saw 315 mule deer, which is fairly similar to results from the past, however, the recruitment rates for mule deer were way up, showing 44 fawns per 100.

"It's because of the mild winter and the survival of the fawns has improved tremendously over the past two winters," said Sterling.

In addition to surveying the mule deer, a land survey of white tail deer was also conducted in early April. The overall umbers were down ten percent compared to last year, however, recruitment was way up with numbers in the upper 30s and lower 40s to every 100 adult deer.

The spring wildlife surveys are one of the biggest data collecting scenarios conducted throughout the year.