Speaker 1: Hey guys, this week's show, we're getting back to our
Speaker 1: conversation with Brocking Millon. He's a biologist from VYU, and
Speaker 1: we already went over part one, which is episode forty,
Speaker 1: So go back and take a listen to that one.
Speaker 1: We talked about everything from moon phase, the herd, bulls,
Speaker 1: and anything kind of in between that. Let's dive back
Speaker 1: in our conversation with Brock and kick off part two
Speaker 1: and talk about every elk hunter's favorite topic, the rut. Okay,
Speaker 1: so now we're going to jump into the perceived strength
Speaker 1: of rut and we just touched on a little bit.
Speaker 1: We're going to talk about what affects it. And you
Speaker 1: in our conversation last week when we were kind of
Speaker 1: just talking about you know, elk in general and you
Speaker 1: know unit's doing good versus bad, you mentioned one of
Speaker 1: the things that the perceived strength of the rut, which
Speaker 1: wouldn't even say perceived at this point, it would be
Speaker 1: a real reason why the right is as you say,
Speaker 1: some years, you know cows coming to you know, only
Speaker 1: fifty percent of the cows will even come into estress. And
Speaker 1: if we can touch on that a little bit, which
Speaker 1: which I think we have on the on the health
Speaker 1: and then you can kind of spin it what we
Speaker 1: were just talking about there before we talked about the
Speaker 1: weather and some of those, uh the other factors with
Speaker 1: the cows and coming into estrus and herd dynamics.
Speaker 2: So sure, So we we've been monitoring pregnancy on a
Speaker 2: whole bunch of units since twenty fifteen, so that's only
Speaker 2: seven or eight years, but from year to year. So
Speaker 2: for example, in twenty twenty one, only sixty one percent
Speaker 2: of the elk that we tested in the whole state
Speaker 2: were pregnant, whereas in looking at the data right now,
Speaker 2: whereas in say twenty fifteen, ninety two percent of the
Speaker 2: elk were pregnant that we tested. And so you would
Speaker 2: expect that if ninety two percent of the elk are
Speaker 2: coming into estrs, the rut is going to be much
Speaker 2: more perceptible or much much stronger than if only sixty
Speaker 2: percent of the animals were coming into estres. And likewise,
Speaker 2: if you look across the state in the same year,
Speaker 2: we have some units that are as low as fifty
Speaker 2: six percent pregnancy, and in the same year other units
Speaker 2: are like ninety percent pregnants. So even unit unit or
Speaker 2: year to year there can be a lot of difference
Speaker 2: in pregnancy, which I believe is correlated to how many
Speaker 2: of the females go into estres.
Speaker 1: Yes, can we I want to jump into estris itself
Speaker 1: a little bit, a little bit more. Let's say a
Speaker 1: cow comes into estres. We talk about this a lot,
Speaker 1: but what does that? What is estris is it? Is
Speaker 1: it something that happens for four hours, twelve hours, twenty
Speaker 1: four thirty six? Like, what's the length of it? If
Speaker 1: if she doesn't get bread during that, will she stay in?
Speaker 2: Like?
Speaker 1: Can we explain a little bit more about sure?
Speaker 2: So there's four phases of estress. Boy, I'm remembering back
Speaker 2: by old biology days. But the main one that we're
Speaker 2: concerned about here is ovulation and so and that's when
Speaker 2: and an ovulation is when an egg is released from
Speaker 2: the ovary of the female. And that's what triggers that
Speaker 2: that estress. And so if if an egg's never released,
Speaker 2: she will never produce the hormones that the male will
Speaker 2: will smell and say, oh, she's going to ovulate and
Speaker 2: it's time to breed with this female so that I
Speaker 2: can fertilize her egg. And so if they never have
Speaker 2: those hormones or fifty percent, and some units never have
Speaker 2: a male. The male comes up and smells and does Nope,
Speaker 2: she's not going to and so he just leaves her
Speaker 2: and goes and looks for another female. It is so
Speaker 2: if if she ovulates and then that egg is fertilized,
Speaker 2: she produces a hormone to stop the cycle so that
Speaker 2: it doesn't For example, in humans in the in a
Speaker 2: menstrual cycle, if the egg is not fertilized, then all
Speaker 2: of that sloughs out and that's what we call a
Speaker 2: menstr cycle. Elk don't have a menstrual cycle, they have
Speaker 2: an extra cycle. But the same principle is if that
Speaker 2: egg doesn't get fertilized, then it's just expelled and the
Speaker 2: and the cycle goes into diapause or diastrous or medestres
Speaker 2: medestres for the for the until the next year, and she.
Speaker 1: Won't she won't have another egg come through the system.
Speaker 1: It's it's one and one chance. So that's where some
Speaker 1: of this idea of the second estrous third estris don't
Speaker 1: necessarily correlate with the science or the biology of of elk.
Speaker 2: So so we it's probably out there in really low
Speaker 2: frequency because on occasion, you'll walk in, you'll run into
Speaker 2: a spotted calf that can barely walk in late July,
Speaker 2: or the same thing, you'll run into a spotted deer
Speaker 2: fond that can barely walk in in late July. But
Speaker 2: we've now monitored Jason probably about seven hundred, eight hundred
Speaker 2: litters of deer and I'm trying to think about two
Speaker 2: hundred with this year, two hundred and forty litters of elk,
Speaker 2: and we have zero evidence of a second estress in
Speaker 2: either deer or elk.
Speaker 1: So what we're seeing is maybe those unhealthy cows or
Speaker 1: unhealthy deer finally becoming healthy enough that they can go
Speaker 1: through this process, and it appears to be a second
Speaker 1: estros or third ester. So you know, there's a lot
Speaker 1: of information or people believing that it's your younger ones
Speaker 1: weren't quite ready to come into estrus, your yearlings and
Speaker 1: they come in, you know, or it could be an
Speaker 1: unhealthy mom that, like you said, raise the cap, she
Speaker 1: might not come in until maybe later. That appears to
Speaker 1: be a second wave, but it's just animals coming in
Speaker 1: later because of health.
Speaker 2: So life scenario that there's it appears to be a
Speaker 2: second wave. So with a second wave, you would you
Speaker 2: would expect, I wish I could draw on a board.
Speaker 2: You would expect a peak and dip down and then
Speaker 2: as a smaller peak, right, yep. But we've never seen that.
Speaker 2: We've never seen anything other than a single peak. It
Speaker 2: may tell off on the end a little more, but
Speaker 2: we've never seen a second peak in either deer or elk.
Speaker 2: Suggesting that it may happen, but we just don't have
Speaker 2: any evidence that it does happen.
Speaker 1: Gotcha. And then this one, the egg drops. You know,
Speaker 1: in the ovulation, is it all scent based or is
Speaker 1: there communication that that cow will have that comes along
Speaker 1: with it? Is there any mannerisms or behavior change or
Speaker 1: is it strictly a scent that that bowld knows exactly
Speaker 1: what's going on in the time.
Speaker 2: Well, that's a great question. I don't think anybody knows
Speaker 2: the answer to that. The more we learn, the more
Speaker 2: we learn, we don't know.
Speaker 1: Okay.
Speaker 2: In mammals that the other thing about estris versus like
Speaker 2: a menstro cycle, is it's not as externally visible as
Speaker 2: some other modes of reproduction. And so the primary way
Speaker 2: to communicate that ovulation has curved, we think, is ol factory.
Speaker 2: But absolutely there could be vocal communication that's going on
Speaker 2: that we don't understand. It hasn't been studied that I
Speaker 2: know of. My guess is there could be some vocal communication,
Speaker 2: but we don't know how they communicate vocally. Really.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, I'm gonna this is my our opinion,
Speaker 1: and not all Elk colors, so I don't want to.
Speaker 1: But there's a lot of Elk collors out there, and
Speaker 1: some of what I would consider my calling strategy is
Speaker 1: we've all heard it out there. You get some of
Speaker 1: what we call like estros buzzing, you know where they're
Speaker 1: they're very it's it's almost like an urgency. Or you
Speaker 1: get this estrous wine versus like your normal cawmew. You know,
Speaker 1: it's a yeah, they'll they'll whine.
Speaker 2: Well they're pretty good at that by your mouth. That's
Speaker 2: we all use that strategy. We all Yeah, I get
Speaker 2: out saying I'm a cow looking for.
Speaker 1: You, yeah, yeah, and then or like you know, Steve Chaplin,
Speaker 1: some of these guys have got some great video of
Speaker 1: I believe it's a bowl in Arizona or something like
Speaker 1: lip uh, what we call an estros buzz It's almost
Speaker 1: like you know, you get we we would almost need
Speaker 1: to like flutter our lips or our throat to provide
Speaker 1: that little bit of vibration. And then bulls show up
Speaker 1: and you're like, well, that was obviously different than just
Speaker 1: your normal mew that a cow is communicating. Is that
Speaker 1: correlating with with that ovulation or that that stage of
Speaker 1: the estress? Who knows. We definitely add that into our strategy.
Speaker 2: But so so you would the most parsimonious or best
Speaker 2: explanation is that that it has to be or it
Speaker 2: wouldn't work.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, but if it is what we think it is,
Speaker 1: then why does it only work part of the time still?
Speaker 2: You know?
Speaker 1: And and so there's there's a little beam ei that
Speaker 1: doesn't want to say it's for sure what's going on,
Speaker 1: because hey, last time I did the same thing, and
Speaker 1: I knew that bull could hear it, and he didn't
Speaker 1: come running, you know. Yeah. Yeah, So I mean there's
Speaker 1: there's enough sign you know, or things at point. All right,
Speaker 1: So one more question about the ovulation she comes into estress.
Speaker 1: Do we have an idea on the time that that
Speaker 1: cow specifically has to be bred before the egg drops
Speaker 1: falls out? Whatever happens there, and turns off that hormone,
Speaker 1: either she's bread and it turns off, or the time's
Speaker 1: up and it turns off. Do we have an idea
Speaker 1: on that time.
Speaker 2: That's a great question if I don't know the answer,
Speaker 2: But if I were to guess, I would say that
Speaker 2: most mammals window of receptivity is a couple of days, okay,
Speaker 2: And so you have you have to fertilize that egg
Speaker 2: in the upper fillopian tubes so that it can start
Speaker 2: to develop and produce the hormone before it gets to
Speaker 2: the side of implantation to stop the cycle from continuing
Speaker 2: on so that it can implant. And so from so
Speaker 2: you may the actual breeding may even happen before ovulation,
Speaker 2: so that the sperm has a chance to be on
Speaker 2: its way there before the moment that ovulation happens, so
Speaker 2: that it's hitting that egg in the upper fillopian tubes,
Speaker 2: if that makes sense. But most things that I've read
Speaker 2: say that there's a there's a two to three day
Speaker 2: window generally in mammals where the egg can be fertilized
Speaker 2: and implant.
Speaker 1: Gotcha, Okay, we're gonna roll into the herd dynamics. And
Speaker 1: if that it's something that I bring up a lot.
Speaker 1: You know, you got high bowl the col ratios. A
Speaker 1: lot of times the herds get smaller. A bowl can't
Speaker 1: maintain that many cows. How does herd dynamics affect affect
Speaker 1: the rut we already talked about earlier, like you know,
Speaker 1: to a certain point, like the least amount of bulls
Speaker 1: on the landscape may be the best for herd health.
Speaker 1: How does herd dynamics affect strength of the rut? And
Speaker 1: that herd bulls really's got a lot more competition now,
Speaker 1: and let's take it even one step further once we
Speaker 1: get that answered, How does like the hierarchy of if
Speaker 1: you had, you know, certain mature bowls versus a bunch
Speaker 1: of raghorns versus you have like a very even mixed
Speaker 1: do you feel that that now affects the rut and
Speaker 1: what we perceive as the rut?
Speaker 2: So those are all great questions. Maybe we'll tackle one
Speaker 2: about say bull the cow ratios first.
Speaker 1: Okay, And.
Speaker 2: It's complex because every hunter wants more bulls on the landscape.
Speaker 2: Say I have heard the carrying capacity of a thousand
Speaker 2: animals on a unit. I don't know what it is.
Speaker 2: Let's just say a thousand simple. If if if I
Speaker 2: make that sixty bulls, which is roughly a natural ratio,
Speaker 2: if there was no hunting or anything in the population,
Speaker 2: that's about what it would be. Even though at birth
Speaker 2: they're one to one male to female. Males generally are
Speaker 2: are as teenagers. Males are more risky, So just like
Speaker 2: in humans, males tend to die as a teenager more
Speaker 2: than females, so that skews the sex ratio a little bit.
Speaker 2: And the average male lives a shorter lifespan the average females,
Speaker 2: so that skews it a little bit. So a natural
Speaker 2: herd with no hunting would generally be something like forty
Speaker 2: percent males and sixty percent females. If we we often
Speaker 2: manipulate that, and we manipulate it both ways. So we
Speaker 2: may say, for example, you have a unit that the
Speaker 2: state objective is one thousand animals, and you want to
Speaker 2: make it a trophy unit, so you let bulls get old,
Speaker 2: and you start putting more and more bulls on the landscape.
Speaker 2: The only way you can maintain a thousand is you
Speaker 2: issue cow tags, and so you go out and you
Speaker 2: harvest a bunch of cows, and maybe now it's fifty
Speaker 2: to fifty, or it's even sixty percent bulls forty percent
Speaker 2: cows because you're mandated by a lot of manage to
Speaker 2: a thousand, but you want more old bulls in the population.
Speaker 2: Doing that really limits the future production. I wouldn't say
Speaker 2: health of the herd, but production of the herd, meaning
Speaker 2: that if I've only got forty percent cows out there
Speaker 2: and only eighty percent of them were given pregnant, the
Speaker 2: productivity of this herd is much lower than if I
Speaker 2: have eighty percent cows and eighty percent of them are
Speaker 2: getting pregnant. Does that make sense?
Speaker 1: It does, But I'm gonna I'm not questioning you, I'm
Speaker 1: questioning the idea that if if this area can only
Speaker 1: carry a thousand elk, regardless, do can we is the
Speaker 1: way to optimize that? As a hunter or you know
Speaker 1: somebody that's looking at hunting those thousand animals? Does it
Speaker 1: make sense to keep that balance at fifty to fifty
Speaker 1: or sixty forty bowld a cow because it can only
Speaker 1: hold a thousand milk? Anyways, what good does it do
Speaker 1: to have us having more cows that then put more
Speaker 1: elk on the landscape? And you know, did that make
Speaker 1: any sense?
Speaker 2: Like is there. Absolutely, it does so because any surplus
Speaker 2: can either be hunted or it's going to die on
Speaker 2: its own. And so the more surplus we have, the
Speaker 2: more hunting opportunity we have.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and so, but we've talked about herd health, which
Speaker 1: I think is important. We shouldn't just overlook that. You're
Speaker 1: saying the herd would potentially be healthier if we only
Speaker 1: had thirty percent bulls and seventy percent cows, But then
Speaker 1: we would have to issue more cow tags every year
Speaker 1: to keep that herd at a thousand, because we don't
Speaker 1: want the herd health to go down. So it would
Speaker 1: be you're exchanging bulltags now for cow tag opportunities.
Speaker 2: Yes, you are, So you're but the potential for opportunity,
Speaker 2: so yes, for a trophy bull hunter that is that's
Speaker 2: probably not the best strategy, But for the opportunity to
Speaker 2: hunt elk, it's the best strategy. If that makes sense.
Speaker 1: Yep.
Speaker 2: And so there's a there's a I mean, we deal
Speaker 2: with this in you to all the time. I'm on
Speaker 2: one of the regional advisory councils where we where we
Speaker 2: make recommendations to our wildlife boarder, which is similar to
Speaker 2: your game commission yep, And this is the constant battle.
Speaker 2: Do we hunt big bulls or do we provide opportunity
Speaker 2: to hunt elk?
Speaker 1: Uh? Yeah, I'm trying to phrase and put together my
Speaker 1: next question. So, without throwing agencies under the bus, if
Speaker 1: a unit is under under carrying capacity or in poor health,
Speaker 1: what you're telling, what I'm hearing from you, is that
Speaker 1: we should not be killing cows because that's the way
Speaker 1: to obviously get the numbers up. We could live with
Speaker 1: less elk. If if trophy bowl quality wasn't the number
Speaker 1: one priority in that unit and we just needed to
Speaker 1: get our elk back up to carrying capacity, we would
Speaker 1: want to keep cows on the landscape and issue less
Speaker 1: cow tags or no cow tags until we met those objectives. Correct.
Speaker 1: I mean, seems to make sense from a biology standpoint
Speaker 1: that cows produce, and you know bulls can produce multiple
Speaker 1: or reproduce with multiple cows. That seems like the strategy
Speaker 1: to move forward.
Speaker 2: Sure.
Speaker 1: Maybe maybe.
Speaker 2: So the reason I'm saying maybe is how do you
Speaker 2: know the population is not at carrying capacity or exceeded
Speaker 2: carrying capacity? Because the biologist of a region says, based
Speaker 2: on everything I know, we're going to put our population
Speaker 2: objective on this unit at fifty seven hundred animals, And
Speaker 2: now we assume that that fifty seven hundred animals is
Speaker 2: what carrying capacity is, where maybe it doesn't have any
Speaker 2: biological basis at all. So the only way to know
Speaker 2: carrying capacity is to be monitoring the nutritional condition of
Speaker 2: those animals, and very few agencies, and even in agencies
Speaker 2: that do, they don't monitor very many populations to know
Speaker 2: the nutritional condition of the population. So the only thing
Speaker 2: we can really look at to start to hint at
Speaker 2: nutritional condition is productivity, how many calves per hundred cows
Speaker 2: kind of thing, and what survival is, stuff like that.
Speaker 1: And I have to imagine that carrying capacity for any
Speaker 1: individual unit is it's variable right in my mind, knowing
Speaker 1: that vegetation changes you mentioned book clips earlier, which maybe
Speaker 1: an anomaly, But if these units vegetation state changes from
Speaker 1: year to year, or you know, some of these certain
Speaker 1: units right now that are going through droughts and we're
Speaker 1: just not not getting the vegetation that it's historically had,
Speaker 1: these things change, does that carrying capacity obviously moves, And
Speaker 1: so it is the only real way to test this
Speaker 1: is to like, all right, nobody hunt, nobody mess with
Speaker 1: the predator. You know, I don't know what the right
Speaker 1: answer is or do you just you would have to
Speaker 1: sit back and observe a unit almost untouched, no hunting pressure,
Speaker 1: and just see, like, all right, we you know, went
Speaker 1: from four thousand to five thousand, the herd started to
Speaker 1: get unhealthy. They dropped themselves back down to forty five hundred.
Speaker 1: So you know, maybe that's the right answer is I
Speaker 1: guess that would be the only way to ever tell.
Speaker 1: And then even from that, it would be potentially variable
Speaker 1: year to year, if the vegetation changes, or snowpacks different,
Speaker 1: or drought hits it. It would be a complex calculation
Speaker 1: to figure out what that right number is.
Speaker 2: Absolutely, and that's the number that biologists are always chasing,
Speaker 2: and that's the number that the public wants to know.
Speaker 2: So you just hit the nail, in my opinion, right
Speaker 2: on the head. That number is almost impossible to know,
Speaker 2: and it changes from year to year. But that's the
Speaker 2: number that everybody wants, yep, and so, and I don't
Speaker 2: think the answer is don't hunt them, especially like in
Speaker 2: a drought. You would expect that in a drought, people say, oh,
Speaker 2: we've had such a bad drought, we need to not
Speaker 2: hunt them. The population is really hurting. But to me biologically,
Speaker 2: if I have a severe drought, I want to remove
Speaker 2: some mouse from the landscape so there is plenty of
Speaker 2: food for the ones that are left there.
Speaker 1: Yeah, probably the same conversations people can be having. I
Speaker 1: mean in your home state of Utah and the northwest
Speaker 1: corner of Wyoming that just got hammered this year with
Speaker 1: two hundred percent plus no packs. Is winter different than
Speaker 1: drought or would you maybe even have the same recommendation
Speaker 1: let's free up some or did the winner do the
Speaker 1: damage and it reduced the population? For the mouses are
Speaker 1: still on the ground, So.
Speaker 2: I think the winner did the damage, so not the damage.
Speaker 2: I think this winner was extreme, and so our extreme
Speaker 2: northwest wasn't horrible. We have places in this state that
Speaker 2: was not good, that were not good. The backside of
Speaker 2: the Los Atch Front was not good.
Speaker 1: Yeah, your northeast corner.
Speaker 2: Yeah, well not even the cash unit up there. Yes,
Speaker 2: up on the extreme northeast and rich County did not
Speaker 2: do well. But the rest of the cash unit was
Speaker 2: not as bad as everybody. It wasn't as bad as
Speaker 2: Wyoming but even this year, Jason our Elk heard, we've
Speaker 2: we've had about eighty nine percent survival on the ones
Speaker 2: that we have colored. So, I mean, winter doesn't affect
Speaker 2: elk like it affects deer.
Speaker 1: Yep or or the antelope. It seemed like they had
Speaker 1: a rough winner as well.
Speaker 2: So yeah, well antelope for sure, because antelope don't store
Speaker 2: fat really yeah, and so they run out early in
Speaker 2: the winter and then they start burning muscle, and muscle
Speaker 2: does not last as long as fat, and so if
Speaker 2: the winter's long and severe, it's decimating the antelope or
Speaker 2: prong horn. Elk generally have enough energetic inertia because of
Speaker 2: their body size that winter is not that big of
Speaker 2: a deal, and elk are long lived, so they they
Speaker 2: don't Drought doesn't really affect an individual either. But what
Speaker 2: it does do is is it does affect the condition
Speaker 2: that animal can get to and the likelihood that it
Speaker 2: goes into estrus. And so the productivity of the herd
Speaker 2: may go down in a drought condition. But for elk,
Speaker 2: survival is still pretty high. I mean, we've been doing
Speaker 2: it a lot of years now. I'm just trying to
Speaker 2: pull up the data so I can tell you, but
Speaker 2: generally adult survival is between ninety two and ninety five
Speaker 2: percent every years.
Speaker 1: That's pretty dang good. Yeah, especially in comparison to dear
Speaker 1: in antelope, which you know obviously lower.
Speaker 2: Right, And I mean, our data are clear. The only
Speaker 2: thing that really kills an adult elk is lead or broadheads,
Speaker 2: I guess, but they don't kill very many.
Speaker 1: So I'm gonna try to wrap this next question. I'm
Speaker 1: looking at what I got here and perceive strength of
Speaker 1: the rut, which I think for a lot of hunters
Speaker 1: that head out correlates with bugling. So I kind of
Speaker 1: had a couple different questions here. One of these came
Speaker 1: from my my marketing manager, Dirk. I hunt with a lot.
Speaker 1: It was it was kind of a and we touched
Speaker 1: on a little bit earlier. But is there any rhyme
Speaker 1: or reason the why the bulls bugle so hard one
Speaker 1: day and the next day they don't necessarily bugle as much?
Speaker 1: You know, even let's say on you know, if we
Speaker 1: if we held whether constant we held you know, we're
Speaker 1: in the peak of the rut or in that that
Speaker 1: general time, is there a reason why would it be?
Speaker 1: Those like we talked earlier, just none of those cows
Speaker 1: are stuck in that ovulation period or there are other
Speaker 1: bulls pestering them, Like, what's the reasons why we seem
Speaker 1: to get like somebody flipping light switches off and on
Speaker 1: on us out there.
Speaker 2: I have no idea, Jason, that that's that would be
Speaker 2: my guess if I was gonna guess, say, for example,
Speaker 2: yesterday we had five calves born and we caught all
Speaker 2: five of them. Of the animals that we have colored today,
Speaker 2: so far, we've had one warning, meaning that so far
Speaker 2: one calf has been born today. And my guess is
Speaker 2: the same thing is happening during the rut and ovulation
Speaker 2: that some days several cows are coming in are ovulating,
Speaker 2: and other days you only have a few of the
Speaker 2: cows that are ovulating. But I don't know if that's
Speaker 2: true or not. I would like to know the answer,
Speaker 2: because we have some units where bulls seldom bugle anymore,
Speaker 2: and other units where they're going off all the time,
Speaker 2: and they've just learned to not bugle as much in
Speaker 2: some units, I think, I don't know.
Speaker 1: Yeah, No, that was where I was going to roll
Speaker 1: into the next one. If there's any data, and it
Speaker 1: sounds like we don't necessarily know, like are some bowls
Speaker 1: genetically disposed of bugling versus non You know, we find
Speaker 1: the same thing in certain areas, elk just won't bugle
Speaker 1: even though we see them, we know they're there, they're
Speaker 1: running cows, they are pushing them, They're just not as
Speaker 1: vocal versus you can go to other areas where you know,
Speaker 1: you can't barely get the things to be quiet at
Speaker 1: times when when you know things are, things are going
Speaker 1: hot and heavy. So we may we might not know
Speaker 1: if they're you know, if they're genetically disposed to bugling
Speaker 1: more or not, or if it's just the way they
Speaker 1: were raised or what they they know.
Speaker 2: So and I don't know the answer, Jason, I'm an
Speaker 2: elk hunter just like you, and I don't know the
Speaker 2: biological explanation maybeing out in the field. The observation I've
Speaker 2: seen is in areas where they get a lot of pressure,
Speaker 2: they're not nearly as loud as when are areas that
Speaker 2: are hard to get to where they don't get very
Speaker 2: much pressure.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I in my opinion, which is just my opinion.
Speaker 1: When they correlate, you know, elk making sounds or elk
Speaker 1: like sounds. I'll leave it at that, and they they
Speaker 1: correlate that with seeing human presence at the location of
Speaker 1: that sound. Getting winded by that sound starts to they're
Speaker 1: they're not necessarily dumb creatures. And I don't know what
Speaker 1: their memory necessarily is, But do they remember that encounter?
Speaker 1: Are they more hesitant to come into something? You know?
Speaker 1: And in my opinion, the way that the you know,
Speaker 1: bugling and caw calling works, it's it's the bull bugles.
Speaker 1: He's obviously louder than a cow you know, cal calling.
Speaker 1: It's to announce his presence, and then any cows that
Speaker 1: want him to breathe them will come join his herd.
Speaker 1: Right and and in the woods we're trying to reverse
Speaker 1: out a little bit. And maybe maybe he's not willing
Speaker 1: to leave his herd to go find this cow, you
Speaker 1: know again, because he's been fooled or he's he's expected danger.
Speaker 1: But I also don't I don't know if you know,
Speaker 1: like what an elk's memory even isn't.
Speaker 2: I don't know what the memory is. But definitely they're
Speaker 2: capable of learning. The The reason I say that that
Speaker 2: they're capable of learning, we did a study here where
Speaker 2: we looked at distribution of elk on the landscape related
Speaker 2: to hunting season, and for that study, on the day
Speaker 2: before the opening of the rifle hunt, like sixty two
Speaker 2: or sixty three percent of the elk in our study
Speaker 2: area we're on public land. And on the day the
Speaker 2: very next day, the opening day of the rifle hunt,
Speaker 2: thirty one percent of the elk we're on public land.
Speaker 2: A full forty percent of the herd had jumped the
Speaker 2: fence onto private land in one day.
Speaker 1: Just from pressure.
Speaker 2: And so to me, they they understand pressure and they
Speaker 2: are very willing to move to avoid pressure.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that that's kind of what I what I was
Speaker 1: thinking in an alliance with what I saw out in
Speaker 1: the field. Last question on strength of the rut and
Speaker 1: how this affects it, And this might be in the
Speaker 1: wrong spot, but what's your opinion on predators? You know,
Speaker 1: we deal with a lot of wolves up up in
Speaker 1: the northern you know States and the lak can you know,
Speaker 1: being it seems like wolves in an area can definitely
Speaker 1: shut down their vocalizations. Is there any studies on the
Speaker 1: rut and how it could be affected by alpha predators?
Speaker 2: Not that I know of, And definitely wolves are affecting
Speaker 2: every part of their behavior. I mean, it's clear from
Speaker 2: the research that's been done that just the presence of
Speaker 2: wolves can influence the stress level of the animal and
Speaker 2: can influence the likelihood that an animal ovulates. We don't
Speaker 2: have wolves in any of our populations that I study,
Speaker 2: but the literature's clear that wolves have an effect.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, just from my observations. Why I'm out
Speaker 1: in the field hunting and a spot that I hunt Idaho,
Speaker 1: We're up on a high spot and we can listen
Speaker 1: and to about three different drainages, and if the wolves
Speaker 1: show up to that same drainage, we hunted throughout the
Speaker 1: day and maybe had good success or good bugling, and
Speaker 1: kind of nowhere they We can't hardly get those things
Speaker 1: to talk in the morning versus they're typically still there.
Speaker 1: They won't change these big basins and drainages that they're
Speaker 1: comfortable in. They just won't talk. The next day. You
Speaker 1: wake up the next morning or that night when you're
Speaker 1: eating dinner, the wolves move to a different drainage. You
Speaker 1: go back in there. The next day they're back to going.
Speaker 1: And once again, is it attributed to some bulls like
Speaker 1: the bugle or you know, bugle heavy one day not
Speaker 1: the other. Or in this case, it's like they obviously
Speaker 1: talked less or not at all because of the presence
Speaker 1: of alpha you know, alpha predators in that drainage with them.
Speaker 1: And like I said, I don't have any scientific it's
Speaker 1: just observation, but it seems to have a very strong
Speaker 1: correlation with wolves in area. They do talk less.
Speaker 2: So and I don't know the answer, but biologically the
Speaker 2: oldest female in the group is probably the one that's
Speaker 2: driving what the group is doing, and she is also
Speaker 2: the one that is most susceptible to wolves. So if
Speaker 2: you can control wolf populations, I think they have a
Speaker 2: positive effect on elk, But if you can't, I think
Speaker 2: they are decimating to elk.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and so so you're just saying that natural predation
Speaker 1: is that sometimes those you know, for lack of a
Speaker 1: better term, those old dry cows need to be taken
Speaker 1: out maybe anyways to reduce some of that. You know,
Speaker 1: if you are going to take cows out, she's the
Speaker 1: right one, but they maybe overdo it a little bit
Speaker 1: and take too many.
Speaker 2: Right, and they're generally not dry. What happens is when
Speaker 2: elk that that was the idea that was in the
Speaker 2: literature is that as an elk gets to be say thirteen,
Speaker 2: fourteen or fifteen, she becomes non reproductive and she's just
Speaker 2: eating resources that otherwise other elk could have to raise calves.
Speaker 2: But it turns out that that elk are reproductive their
Speaker 2: entire life. Even if they live to be thirty, they're
Speaker 2: still reproductive. But as they get old, they tend to
Speaker 2: be they tend to skip years, so they're more likely
Speaker 2: to be pregnant every other year as they get old.
Speaker 1: Gotcha, Okay, Yeah, like I said, predators, we might not
Speaker 1: know exactly how it affects, but that that uh, that's
Speaker 1: just what we've we've seen and definitely has an effect.
Speaker 2: Right, So if you could remove that old cow, you're
Speaker 2: increasing the productivity of the herd because now you have
Speaker 2: a greater majority of the herd are young cows that
Speaker 2: are breeding every year.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm we could jump into it. I'm gonna touch
Speaker 1: on it real quick. Around home, when caw tags are given,
Speaker 1: you hear of you know, big groups of people that
Speaker 1: have cow tags and their goal is to always you know,
Speaker 1: shoot the lead cow because then the herd becomes unable
Speaker 1: to protect themselves. Is that is that true? Or is
Speaker 1: the second in command, Like, is that pecking order already
Speaker 1: figured out and that second cow has followed the lead
Speaker 1: cow around for multiple years, it's already got it figured out.
Speaker 1: Or is there is there a true disruption to the
Speaker 1: herd when that lead cow gets shot for a short
Speaker 1: period of time where they've got to like refigure them
Speaker 1: themselves out and who's in control and where they're going
Speaker 1: for safety.
Speaker 2: I have no idea, and I don't think anybody does. Biologically, however,
Speaker 2: in every ungulate I studied bison for part of my PhD.
Speaker 2: In every ungulate, the dominance hierarchy is pretty clear. We
Speaker 2: know which one's boss, and we know which one's in
Speaker 2: second place, and we know which one's in third place,
Speaker 2: and the whole herd knows that. Now they may be
Speaker 2: used to following the lead animal and she if she leaves,
Speaker 2: they don't may not know what to do temporarily. I
Speaker 2: don't know the answer to that. I'm fine with people
Speaker 2: taking the lead animal because that's generally the oldest one
Speaker 2: in the group. It's not the one I want.
Speaker 1: Yep, yeah, yeah, yeah, Okay. This kind of rolls in
Speaker 1: the perceived strength of the rut. But let's talk a
Speaker 1: little bit about the rut during night. And one of
Speaker 1: the strategies some people tell me we shouldn't even talk
Speaker 1: about is locating elk at night. They're more talkative, they
Speaker 1: seem to be going better, temperatures are cooling. Is there
Speaker 1: any reason or or what is the reason that the
Speaker 1: rut seems to always go stronger through through you know,
Speaker 1: the nighttime than it is during the day. Is it temperatures?
Speaker 1: Is it is a biological reason? Can you well elaborating them?
Speaker 2: I think it's both. I think that that elk have
Speaker 2: evolved to be crepuscular or nocturnal, uh, to avoid predators.
Speaker 2: But I do think they're a large bodied animal and
Speaker 2: they have a thick coat and heat is really tough
Speaker 2: on them. And and I think it's more about temperature
Speaker 2: in adult elk, it's more about temperature than it is
Speaker 2: avoiding predators.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that that makes sense. I mean, you there's been
Speaker 1: times where we've been in areas hunting all day, heard
Speaker 1: a few beagles go back at night and the place
Speaker 1: is just on fire with multiple bulls you didn't hear
Speaker 1: throughout the day. And it just seems, in my opinion,
Speaker 1: you know, those bulls seem to almost get I'm gonna
Speaker 1: I'm not claiming to be a biologist here with my statement,
Speaker 1: but in the middle of the day, if they're running
Speaker 1: hard in the morning, the day heats up, it almost
Speaker 1: like they get a little bit sick or a little
Speaker 1: bit overheated. You know, they go bed down a lot
Speaker 1: of times that bowl will bet has heard down and
Speaker 1: then he'll go maybe visit a wallow by himself real
Speaker 1: quick once he's got, you know, all this housekeeping done.
Speaker 1: It just seems like they shut down in the middle
Speaker 1: of the day during that heat and then almost set
Speaker 1: your clock to it. As wherever they're betting, when the
Speaker 1: sun gets low enough, the shade hits it, they're cool enough,
Speaker 1: they pop back up and they're right back to doing
Speaker 1: their thing. You know, maybe it's a little bit later,
Speaker 1: but they're they're now back to running. Where they take
Speaker 1: that midday off which seems to correlate with temperature and
Speaker 1: maybe nothing else.
Speaker 2: And the reason I think, again, I haven't read anything
Speaker 2: biological on it, but the reason I think what you're
Speaker 2: saying makes more sense is because they're there's a lot
Speaker 2: of thick cover and they when they go to bed down.
Speaker 2: They they generally don't go to thick cover that's on
Speaker 2: south facing or exposed slopes. They go to north dark timber,
Speaker 2: north facing slopes that are dark timber where it's greatest
Speaker 2: likelihood of being cool to bed down and spend the day.
Speaker 2: To me, that's more thermal regulation than it is protection.
Speaker 1: Yep, yep, And yeah, this is just I'm thrown in
Speaker 1: a bonus observation. They've also got the uncanny ability wherever
Speaker 1: they are going to bed, they've figured out that the
Speaker 1: wind swirls there all day long, during through the middle
Speaker 1: of the day. I I mean, people can call them
Speaker 1: a not very smart animal, but you know meal deer alike,
Speaker 1: Like those things will go bed in a situation where
Speaker 1: you're like, there's zero ways for me to approach without
Speaker 1: blowing them out of here. You know. Yeah, it's cool,
Speaker 1: it's you know, but it's like, how the heck did
Speaker 1: you guys find this spot where there's no way the
Speaker 1: wind ever sits still?
Speaker 2: You can see all the way and direction and you
Speaker 2: can smell all the way in the other yep.
Speaker 1: Yeah, they watch their backtrack or you know, they they
Speaker 1: they're in these little pockets that swirl off the edges,
Speaker 1: which is just enough and just like just frustrating as all. Heck,
Speaker 1: but well, one of the things we talked last week
Speaker 1: Brock when we were kind of getting into it, and
Speaker 1: one of them, like one thing that I'm very interested
Speaker 1: in is kind of that adjacent units one doing well
Speaker 1: versus one doing you know, maybe subpar and struggling a
Speaker 1: little bit, but then not even being able to say
Speaker 1: that it's similar habitat and it might not be that
Speaker 1: you know, it's habitat, it might not be wintering ground,
Speaker 1: it might not be predators. We go into a little
Speaker 1: bit what we were talking about last week on on you know,
Speaker 1: trying to and one of the what I'm assuming is
Speaker 1: very very difficult for biologists and people that are trying
Speaker 1: to manage these animals to figure out is how you
Speaker 1: how biologists look at these units, how you figure out
Speaker 1: you know, trends, and then trying to figure out what
Speaker 1: the fixes are and how they're different from you know,
Speaker 1: unit unit, even if they're adjacent.
Speaker 2: Right, So it's complex, and I think this is state
Speaker 2: by state specific because each state manages their ELK differently.
Speaker 2: In Utah, on our on our trophy area or quality units,
Speaker 2: we manage to an age objective, So we want the
Speaker 2: average bowl harvested to be seven years old or something
Speaker 2: like that. That's very different than average than managing to
Speaker 2: a bull the cow ratio, which we do not do,
Speaker 2: and a lot of states do do that.
Speaker 1: So I have a dumb question for you, Brock, and
Speaker 1: I think I know the answer, but I want to ask. So,
Speaker 1: when you're managing to an age objective you got are
Speaker 1: you are you just looking what's on the ground? Are
Speaker 1: you assuming if like you guys got good data, eighty
Speaker 1: percent of the cows were fertile, eighty percent of the
Speaker 1: cabs hit the ground, we assume those are forty forty.
Speaker 1: We're going to allow x amount of bulls to be
Speaker 1: taken over the years. This should get you know, and
Speaker 1: so you just limit it by tags knowing that a
Speaker 1: certain amount should get to that age, or you guys
Speaker 1: doing a little bit of both.
Speaker 2: So with they're doing a little bit of neither. So
Speaker 2: what they what they do is in this state, it's
Speaker 2: I don't think it's mandatory, but it's becoming mandatory. But
Speaker 2: it's recommended that everybody that harvests the bull sends in
Speaker 2: a tooth an incisor, and I think we get about
Speaker 2: eighty percent return, and we age every one of those animals,
Speaker 2: and so we know the age of the animals being harvested.
Speaker 2: So when we manage for our age objective, we want
Speaker 2: the average age of a bull harvested to be six
Speaker 2: years old. If those ages come back on average five
Speaker 2: years old, this state cuts tags. They're assuming because until
Speaker 2: this year, our rifle hunt has been right on top
Speaker 2: of the rut, and so they're assuming that the people
Speaker 2: are taking the biggest and this is a misconception oldest
Speaker 2: bool because the biggest is not the oldest for sure,
Speaker 2: And so they cut tags, saying, well, we need the
Speaker 2: average bull on this unit to be older, and then
Speaker 2: they reevaluate next year. Sure enough, this year at averages six,
Speaker 2: so we're going to keep tags here, and then if
Speaker 2: next year it goes up to seven, then they add
Speaker 2: more tags. And that's how they do it in this state. Man.
Speaker 1: I don't want to dig into the decision making, but
Speaker 1: there's a lot of other factor. I mean, some of
Speaker 1: your premium units, I mean they're they're pretty reserved on
Speaker 1: their tag numbers, right, And what happened what happened if
Speaker 1: you get a bunch of you know, mountain men that
Speaker 1: have hunted their whole lives always found success one year,
Speaker 1: and then you not saying age always plays and it
Speaker 1: you get some out of shape people that don't want
Speaker 1: to leave the road, and it's very contrasting but doesn't
Speaker 1: really tell the story. But you're saying, there's no other
Speaker 1: data that goes into that aside from tooth aging three teeth.
Speaker 2: So that's the primary data that go into those management
Speaker 2: making decisions. Having said that, here's the problem. We just
Speaker 2: changed the whole system in Utah. We got rid of
Speaker 2: the old age class because it turns out the data
Speaker 2: are pretty clear. He said, this is kind of off
Speaker 2: topic of where you were going, but the data are
Speaker 2: pretty clear. The average bull reaches its maximum size of
Speaker 2: antler at age seven, and it's about ninety five percent
Speaker 2: that size at age six when and this is true
Speaker 2: for deer two, not six and seven, but dere it's
Speaker 2: four and five. But everybody, I hear people say all
Speaker 2: the time, if you just give that animal one more year,
Speaker 2: just think what it would be. Generally, that's not true. Generally,
Speaker 2: the animal is as big as it's going to be
Speaker 2: if it's at least seven years old. And so if say,
Speaker 2: for example, a bull had the potential of four hundred inches,
Speaker 2: it would be ninety five percent of that. So what
Speaker 2: is that that's two hundred That would be three hundred
Speaker 2: three eighty bowl at age six. It gets killed at
Speaker 2: age six because nobody's going to pass a three eighty bull.
Speaker 2: And but the average bull, this may be surprising, the
Speaker 2: average bull on the landscape at age seven is three
Speaker 2: hundred and nineteen inches. And that's based on measuring about
Speaker 2: five thousand bulls. That's the average potential of a bull
Speaker 2: three hundred and nineteen inches. And so a three eighty
Speaker 2: bowl is an anomaly, or a four hundred inch bull
Speaker 2: is an anomaly. And so if you go to one
Speaker 2: of these premium limited entry units and you say I'm
Speaker 2: holding out for a three eighty, you're shooting probably going
Speaker 2: to shoot a five or six year old bull if
Speaker 2: you actually do that, and because and you're going to
Speaker 2: let the eight, nine, ten year old that's three twenty
Speaker 2: that's the average bull survive. And so you're squandering, in
Speaker 2: my opinion, you're squandering a lot of mature old bulls
Speaker 2: because you can be selective and harvest the younger ones
Speaker 2: that have more but greater potential for antler development.
Speaker 1: Yep, that makes a ton of sense.
Speaker 2: And in fact, we have a unit in Utah, the
Speaker 2: Beaver Unit, where they almost doubled the numbers of tags
Speaker 2: on the unit and the average age of the harvested
Speaker 2: bull dramatically increased.
Speaker 1: Yeah, because people were now willing to take those three
Speaker 1: eighteen or three nineteen, you know, top potential bulls out
Speaker 1: of the herd, because there were more tags on the ground.
Speaker 2: That's right. They were shooting a three twenty that was
Speaker 2: eleven years old.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and that's I mean, it's just tough to manage, right.
Speaker 1: I mean we see the same thing on deer where
Speaker 1: everybody wants a four point with deep forks, but you
Speaker 1: take that thing two years you know, he's three and
Speaker 1: a half or four and a half, and don't let
Speaker 1: him get to five or six. And it's like, man,
Speaker 1: at some point, and I don't know how you ever
Speaker 1: manage it or how you get it through people's heads. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it may score better, but can't we shoot the big
Speaker 1: you know, one hundred and forty and three point that's
Speaker 1: seven years old? Or you know, it's like, I just
Speaker 1: we can't And this is where you have to walk
Speaker 1: a fine line. Everybody's out there for their own reason, right,
Speaker 1: and so you don't want to feel like you're dictating
Speaker 1: what's going on there to some extent. But yeah, I
Speaker 1: think horn size versus age and the disconnect there is
Speaker 1: always going to be like one of the you know, uh,
Speaker 1: and I guess I have to use the word trophy
Speaker 1: hunter's dilemma is do you want to kill the Nobody
Speaker 1: necessarily cares that you killed an eleven year old bowl
Speaker 1: because we don't talk about, Hey, my your bowl was seven,
Speaker 1: mine was eleven. We talk about your bowl was three eighty,
Speaker 1: mine was four hundred.
Speaker 2: Right, that's to me, that's the problem. So just like
Speaker 2: yel the average gear only gets to the upper one sixties.
Speaker 2: That's the average buck, no matter how old they are,
Speaker 2: and so everybody's at all You let that get one
Speaker 2: more year, it would be a one eighty. Nope, it wouldn't.
Speaker 2: It would be a one sixty. I'm not saying that
Speaker 2: elk and deer can't explode from one year to an
Speaker 2: ax and add thirty inches. Yeah, but on average, for
Speaker 2: everyone that adds thirty inches from seven to eight, one
Speaker 2: loses thirty inches from seven to eight.
Speaker 1: Yep. And from what I've seen, the biggest determined is
Speaker 1: not their genetic potential. It's whether you maybe you had
Speaker 1: a drought one year and they were able to get
Speaker 1: some good green the next year and live up to
Speaker 1: their potential versus they didn't just put on You know,
Speaker 1: if you have great years back to back, they're not
Speaker 1: going to necessarily put on twenty more inches.
Speaker 2: So actually this is really cool. And again it's another
Speaker 2: topic of elk, but I love this topic because we've
Speaker 2: studied a lot, and that is that the current year's
Speaker 2: climatic conditions. So this the green up right now that
Speaker 2: the elker eating while they're growing, accounts for about ten
Speaker 2: percent of their antler development. So in a good year,
Speaker 2: I can be a three to sixty bowl, and in
Speaker 2: an average or a poor year, I'll be a three
Speaker 2: thirty bowl. It's just based on what I'm meeting this year.
Speaker 1: Yep, yep.
Speaker 2: The second factor that has the same exact effect is
Speaker 2: how healthy mom was when that bull was in Uterus
Speaker 2: seven years ago.
Speaker 1: Oh, I've I was made very very aware of this.
Speaker 1: Ranella put me in touch with Kevin Monteeth out of
Speaker 1: Ye and I couldn't wrap my head around this. And
Speaker 1: I've I've finally come around to it because I was,
Speaker 1: I was coming up with all sorts of extreme scenarios
Speaker 1: if I took these little meal deer we have in
Speaker 1: Washington and put them on the pont Sigaunt and trapped
Speaker 1: him in a cage with you know, three generations down
Speaker 1: the road. And He's like, oh, yeah, they'd be giants.
Speaker 1: And I just couldn't wrap my head around it, you know,
Speaker 1: based on nutrition and mother's health and whatnot. So yeah,
Speaker 1: it's still crazy to me that a lot of their
Speaker 1: potential happens why they're you know, in the and you know,
Speaker 1: in their mom's belly.
Speaker 2: So yeah, Kevin and I do a lot of similar
Speaker 2: research and and he's awesome, and and that's what it is.
Speaker 2: Mother's nutrition in deer. An elk, the effect of mother
Speaker 2: is not as great and dear as it is an elk.
Speaker 2: The effective mother is really significant in elk. And this
Speaker 2: is the other reason you don't want populations to get
Speaker 2: to a density where it's effelt, where it's affecting condition
Speaker 2: of the average animal on the landscape, because if you
Speaker 2: let it get to that population density, the average potential
Speaker 2: for any bull on the landscape is reduced.
Speaker 1: Yep.
Speaker 2: So I hear people say stuff all the time, like
Speaker 2: this unit has gone in the tank. The elk on
Speaker 2: this unit are not near as good. The division's killing
Speaker 2: too many elk, where the real answer may be they're
Speaker 2: actually killing too few, and there's now too many mouths
Speaker 2: on the landscape. Moms aren't in as good a condition,
Speaker 2: and they're throwing calves that just don't have the potential
Speaker 2: that they did ten years ago when there were only
Speaker 2: half as many elk on the landscape.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna make a correlation here, which to me is
Speaker 1: more apparent is fishing. We've all been to these historic
Speaker 1: lakes where people talk about the eight to ten pound
Speaker 1: rainbows they caught in some of our lakes here, And
Speaker 1: now you go to these lakes and you can't catch
Speaker 1: anything bigger than a pound, and they're like, well, guess
Speaker 1: what we reduced the limits. We used to be able
Speaker 1: to catch ten fish a day out of here. Now
Speaker 1: we can catch two fish a day, which now isn't
Speaker 1: enough reason to even drive, you know, forty five minutes
Speaker 1: up the mountain to go fish it. And it's one
Speaker 1: of those things where just the overpopulation has now reduced
Speaker 1: the size because there's less food, you know. So it's
Speaker 1: like we see this all the time where I live
Speaker 1: in these high lakes. Is you know, if we cut
Speaker 1: a lot more fish out of here, the fish that
Speaker 1: we're here would be a whole lot bigger and healthier.
Speaker 1: But yeah, since we can't, now we've got yeah, we've
Speaker 1: got a whole fish, but nobody fishes anymore, so no
Speaker 1: fish are being taken out, and now we don't have
Speaker 1: anything bigger than a you know, a one pound rainbow.
Speaker 1: And yeah, it sounds like it's very similar with elk
Speaker 1: can I So I kind of pose this question to
Speaker 1: Kevin when I talked to him through some emails, so
Speaker 1: on hard is this where like because winners can be
Speaker 1: very drastic. I'm trying to figure out how to phrase
Speaker 1: this question. You can have one winner like you know,
Speaker 1: very mild, great green up, you know, or very easy winner,
Speaker 1: and then you have winter like this where in some
Speaker 1: area is very very tough. Right that that calf that's
Speaker 1: one year apart from its sibling, half brother or it
Speaker 1: could be full brother, whatever is going to be have
Speaker 1: the potential. Let's say their dad the bowl was the
Speaker 1: same size. So the genetic potential isn't there, but you
Speaker 1: could have a potent, a genetic potential up to twenty
Speaker 1: percent different just because one year that same mom had
Speaker 1: to get through some rough winter while you were in
Speaker 1: the in the belly, the other calf just had a heyday.
Speaker 1: Why she was eating whatever she wanted, stayed fat and healthy.
Speaker 1: But yet now that those bulls are on the landscape,
Speaker 1: you know, yeah, regardless they got a year difference, that
Speaker 1: one bull's now going to have fifty inch you know,
Speaker 1: talking in horn size, have the potential to be fifty
Speaker 1: inches bigger.
Speaker 2: Absolutely, So it's not a genetic potential that's completely nutrition based.
Speaker 2: The two bulls are basically the exact same genetics, but
Speaker 2: because of the year they were born and the year
Speaker 2: they were in utero, the potential antler growth is dramatically different.
Speaker 2: Absolutely yep.
Speaker 1: And then, like I said, we we ultimately came around
Speaker 1: that they're all these matter and they all have an effect,
Speaker 1: but maybe the most dramatic, the most the highest changing variable,
Speaker 1: I guess, is that mother's health. Because the nutrition is
Speaker 1: going to be fairly stable, you know, genetics are going
Speaker 1: to be what they are, you know, so it seemed
Speaker 1: like that mother's health maybe had the biggest controlling factor,
Speaker 1: is what we were trying to get across, compared to
Speaker 1: some of the other things, everything else being equal, of course.
Speaker 2: It probably has the biggest effect, and it's the thing
Speaker 2: that we can control the most. Yep, Yeah, absolutely, I
Speaker 2: agree with that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's crazy. And we've even we even got into
Speaker 1: like twins and then like how that you know, a
Speaker 1: twin is going to be you know, if a bowl
Speaker 1: comes out of a set of twins is going to
Speaker 1: be at a at a lower potential because they're there
Speaker 1: were competing twins in the belly, you know, and versus
Speaker 1: a single that drops. And yeah, it's kind of fascinating
Speaker 1: when you get into it that that the you know,
Speaker 1: at the at the calf level, the unborn calf level,
Speaker 1: like the size of you know, a bull's horns are
Speaker 1: being determined in some way or another.
Speaker 2: Absolutely, So, I mean we've had we haven't had a
Speaker 2: set of twins and elk yet, so it'll be interesting
Speaker 2: if we ever do.
Speaker 1: Can track that a little bit. Yeah, So what are
Speaker 1: what are the I mean, I'm just throwing a question.
Speaker 1: Is there a percentage like is it very lower singles
Speaker 1: or you know, single digit type twins.
Speaker 2: And three hundred litters. Here, we haven't had a single
Speaker 2: set of twins that we've found. I mean, I guess
Speaker 2: there is possibility that we've had one that we haven't found,
Speaker 2: but you know, the average calf is thirty five pounds,
Speaker 2: and to raise two of those that that would be tough. Yeah,
Speaker 2: So I mean my guess is that there may be
Speaker 2: it maybe happens, and the better condition or the better
Speaker 2: the habitat is, the more likely it is to happen. Definitely,
Speaker 2: that's true with moose. But twins is the is the
Speaker 2: optimal with moose, whereas singles are the optimum with elk.
Speaker 2: And it's completely nutrition driven whether an elk, whether a
Speaker 2: moose has a single or a twin, and twins is
Speaker 2: the normal with deer and interesting. Deer have a very
Speaker 2: different strategy than elk. Deer or pregnant every year regardless,
Speaker 2: they manipulate their energy allocation after birth, whereas elk manipulate
Speaker 2: it before birth.
Speaker 1: Gotcha, Yeah, Yeah, I'm glad we touched. That was kind
Speaker 1: of my segue in we were going to talk about
Speaker 1: genetic potential, but we we got there a little sooner,
Speaker 1: which is perfect. And then let's let's jump into calling
Speaker 1: elk and and see what you have the you know,
Speaker 1: if there's anything you can add, maybe I'll just open
Speaker 1: it up to an open forum of of you know,
Speaker 1: if you've got any research on ELK calling and and
Speaker 1: if we can tie that back in, you know, to
Speaker 1: to biology, if if you've got any data or any
Speaker 1: studies that that relate.
Speaker 2: Uh I, I don't know of any studies on ELK
Speaker 2: calling in the in the biological literature. I wish I
Speaker 2: was better at it.
Speaker 1: I mean, yeah, there's just so many unknowns. I wish
Speaker 1: there was data that supported one or other, just so
Speaker 1: I knew I wouldn't necessarily make changes to it because
Speaker 1: the way I do it, and I've always told people
Speaker 1: when it comes to calling ELK. I even talked about
Speaker 1: this in my very last episode. I'm out there for
Speaker 1: a very specific reason. Yeah, I can spot in stock ELK,
Speaker 1: I can cow call elkin, but dang, I'm out there
Speaker 1: for that time when I rip a bugle at him
Speaker 1: and he rolls his eyes back in his head and
Speaker 1: pushes through a tree, twists his head sideways, and you know,
Speaker 1: comes around that corner and rips a beagle in my face,
Speaker 1: like I want that experience is why I love calling elk.
Speaker 1: But I also recognize that there are very successful elk
Speaker 1: hunters that claim to know, or I want to say,
Speaker 1: claim they've they've reduced it to a language, a form
Speaker 1: of communication, you know, whether, hey, when they when they chuckle,
Speaker 1: it means this, and when they lipball it means this,
Speaker 1: and when they scream at you, it means this. And
Speaker 1: albeit we've even applied these these terms scream and lip
Speaker 1: ball to their sounds, so who even knows what those
Speaker 1: are necessarily, But and then there's people that claim, you know,
Speaker 1: spot in stocks the way to go, versus I call
Speaker 1: more on a temperament. I feel like I've always been
Speaker 1: able to just read the situation. You we talked about
Speaker 1: it earlier. There are bulls with certain personalities. Maybe I'm
Speaker 1: out there killing the ones with all the tough guy attitudes,
Speaker 1: whatever it may be, but I want to get close.
Speaker 1: And I do feel that that that bulls are on
Speaker 1: the landscape for really two reasons, right, It's the it's
Speaker 1: to survive and then to recreate. And maybe you you've
Speaker 1: got some additions there, But I mean as a as
Speaker 1: a species, they're they're trying to recreate and then they
Speaker 1: just want to live to the next year to try
Speaker 1: to recreate again.
Speaker 2: So that that isn't that the function of every animal?
Speaker 1: Yep? I mean they're they're they're literally trying to do
Speaker 1: two things. So I'm very confident in boiling it down
Speaker 1: to that. And then within that, if he's let's say
Speaker 1: you're trying trying to call in a herd bowl, wouldn't
Speaker 1: it be one of the ways, like in my head
Speaker 1: is is he's got his cow, he's already got his
Speaker 1: ability to recreate. If he's able to maintain those cows
Speaker 1: through the process of the rut. Right, if as they
Speaker 1: start to release you know, these certain hormones and other
Speaker 1: you know, every other elk in the drainage is now aware,
Speaker 1: can he sustain and hold off you know other bowls.
Speaker 1: So in my opinion, we talked about it earlier, we
Speaker 1: get very very close because I'm not going to get
Speaker 1: that bowl that's got his for sure thing to come
Speaker 1: check me out three hundred yards away. Right, I'm trying
Speaker 1: to maybe even reverse engineer the way wild wants to work.
Speaker 1: And hey, I'll be agle if you're a cow come
Speaker 1: see me. I'm trying to get very close. And then
Speaker 1: I'm actually why I bugle very you know, maybe more
Speaker 1: than a cow call is I want to create this
Speaker 1: idea that hey, you might have a cow in estris
Speaker 1: Or and he are ready to be bred. But I'm
Speaker 1: now right on your herd. You know, you've already pushed
Speaker 1: your other satellite bowls off in this direction or that
Speaker 1: direction and their bedded you know, exit distance away. But
Speaker 1: I'm now right on top of you. You Now, I've
Speaker 1: got close enough where your fight or flight has been
Speaker 1: triggered and either going to risk the chance of losing
Speaker 1: your cows or you know, defeating me the new bullet
Speaker 1: showed up and maintaining your cows. Whereas we're like, in
Speaker 1: my mind, if we if we bugle our way in,
Speaker 1: we've now given that bowl. We haven't triggered that fight
Speaker 1: or flight. He will flight, but he's taking his cows
Speaker 1: with him, and he's gonna do that way before you
Speaker 1: have ever a chance with a bow in your hand.
Speaker 1: Right and you know we could we've coined it shock
Speaker 1: and awe, but it's I I do feel that if
Speaker 1: you call your way in, you're Yeah, there are times
Speaker 1: where we need him to pop off so we don't
Speaker 1: get the wind wrong or make sure we're approaching right.
Speaker 1: But a lot of times, once we locate a bowl,
Speaker 1: we don't make another peep until we get next to him.
Speaker 1: And it's it's really trying to play on on those
Speaker 1: two facts that they're they're trying to recreate this time
Speaker 1: of year. They've got one month plus or minus to
Speaker 1: do it, and they've got cows on a heard bull.
Speaker 2: So I'm I'm very where I'm not. I'm guarantee I'm
Speaker 2: not as good a bull color as you. But once
Speaker 2: I've located a bull, I go at him as hard
Speaker 2: as I can, as fast as I can, making noise
Speaker 2: to even maybe one hundred yards, and then I slow
Speaker 2: down because if they're moving you and you tenderfoot around,
Speaker 2: you never catch them.
Speaker 1: Yep.
Speaker 2: And once you're close, then you're in there zone and
Speaker 2: you can get them to do something yep.
Speaker 1: Yep, and a little bit of the opposite. Let's go
Speaker 1: ahead say.
Speaker 2: And I think you're right. Every bull has a different personality,
Speaker 2: so you know, so I'm a little a little cal
Speaker 2: call and that gets them going and others that doesn't
Speaker 2: work and they start moving the herd off and the
Speaker 2: last ball I got, I didn't even bugle. He started
Speaker 2: moving his herd, but I had three cow calls, and
Speaker 2: I started doing them all and breaking branches, and he
Speaker 2: turned around and ran right back.
Speaker 1: Yep, yep, and and using that same fight or flight.
Speaker 1: And you know, the the the want or the you know,
Speaker 1: they're genetically disposed to want to recreate. If we're dealing
Speaker 1: with a satellite bowl. There are bulls that are on
Speaker 1: the landscape that don't have cows, but maybe mature enough
Speaker 1: or not even mature enough, but they want to have cows,
Speaker 1: and and they're they're mature enough to know the game
Speaker 1: and what's going on, and they're smelling all the smells
Speaker 1: of September. We typically go at those with a lot
Speaker 1: of cow calls because the pecking order has been established.
Speaker 1: As you mentioned earlier, I believe the bulls can look
Speaker 1: at each other and know, like, well, your four notches
Speaker 1: down for me, I'm two notches up from you, like
Speaker 1: you know, almost not to that degree, but but in
Speaker 1: some sense, like they know that degree. Yeah, who's tougher
Speaker 1: than who. Let's not let's not pretend to be, you know,
Speaker 1: number one or number two on the list where this
Speaker 1: guy's gonna get his butt kicked. He has no reason
Speaker 1: to come to us. But let's say if I now
Speaker 1: use cow calls on this satellite bowl, let's not use
Speaker 1: a bugle, or if we do use a bugle, it
Speaker 1: needs to be very, very low threat, like maybe a
Speaker 1: spike is his. You know, got a cow or a
Speaker 1: raghorn or whatever you want to say, Let's use heavy,
Speaker 1: heavy cow calls on this bull and staying within those
Speaker 1: confines of my system, I don't feel like I got
Speaker 1: to know what every single elk call and sound and
Speaker 1: intricacy of it means. Yeah, I can make it all
Speaker 1: day long and be fine. But if I just limit
Speaker 1: it to that and playoff of their wont to recreate,
Speaker 1: I can control and it can dictate a lot of
Speaker 1: what I'm doing as far as a call coming out
Speaker 1: of my mouth.
Speaker 2: So yeah, and I by no means if I mastered calling.
Speaker 2: I wish I was better, But it works, And I think,
Speaker 2: in my opinion, like you said, everyone has a different
Speaker 2: personality if you can figure out their personality. Sometimes though,
Speaker 2: I would say that it may be better to have
Speaker 2: the satellite bull, because sometimes the satellite bull can be
Speaker 2: bigger than the dominant bull.
Speaker 1: Yep.
Speaker 2: The dominant bull is dominant because of body size, not
Speaker 2: because of antler size. And so you could have an
Speaker 2: eight nine year old three twenty bowl that is actually
Speaker 2: the herd Bowl, and you could have a satellite bull
Speaker 2: that's a three sixty that's six years old. And so
Speaker 2: if you can't see them, I think sometimes there are
Speaker 2: strategies for both.
Speaker 1: Yeah, we see it every year where you know, a
Speaker 1: lot of times we get stuck chasing the Herd Bowl
Speaker 1: because of what it is. But many times we've ran
Speaker 1: into the Satellite Bowl or changed our decision and turned
Speaker 1: to the turn to that satellite Bowl just because you know,
Speaker 1: of horn size and probably easier to call in most
Speaker 1: of the time than that herd bull anyways.
Speaker 2: Right, So, but you're right, it's their Their game is
Speaker 2: to procreate and that's what that's what they're figuring out,
Speaker 2: and you're our game is to is to trick them
Speaker 2: into procreating with the cow that we're with or whatever.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, yeah, we're trying to imitate that cow. And
Speaker 1: it's a little bit of I I feel we're reversing
Speaker 1: it because I've seen it many times where a bull beagles.
Speaker 1: Maybe a loan cow was on a ridge and you
Speaker 1: can kind of, you know, you're glassing across the canyon.
Speaker 1: You can see that loan cow. Once that bull beagles,
Speaker 1: she'll like b line to him and she'll go join
Speaker 1: the herd. You know, he kind of he'll come out
Speaker 1: of his herd kind of wrapper push her into the herd.
Speaker 1: You know, she's now part of the group. Well, it's like,
Speaker 1: I think that's how it's supposed to work. We're over
Speaker 1: here trying to do the opposite, like get this bowl
Speaker 1: and now leave his cows. You know, he's got other
Speaker 1: satellite bulls pestering him around his cows like he's he's
Speaker 1: got a lot to risk by leaving that group. And
Speaker 1: that's why I feel we've just got to get so
Speaker 1: close so that that bull feels comfortable only leave in
Speaker 1: fifty yards, so he can run right back if he
Speaker 1: needs to, you know, and not not risk losing those
Speaker 1: to come check us out. Who's this new cow on
Speaker 1: the landscape or this new bowl on the landscape that's
Speaker 1: that's given him, you know, either threatening his herd or
Speaker 1: wants to join is heard, So.
Speaker 2: I think I think that's definitely true. I do also
Speaker 2: think and I don't know. I'd like to hear your
Speaker 2: opinion on this, Jase. I think it can be different
Speaker 2: pre rut and post rut because pre rut they're looking.
Speaker 2: Post they may be looking. So you may have dominant
Speaker 2: bulls that are willing to come to a caw call.
Speaker 2: For sure. During the peak they're usually locked with a group.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I should have prefaced that conversation on I would
Speaker 1: say more peak rep and maybe not peak rep but
Speaker 1: close to that, you know, September fifth to twenty fifth
Speaker 1: or thirtieth. But I'm I agree with you completely and
Speaker 1: we talk about it a little bit where I'm I'm
Speaker 1: a fairly heavy bugler and my strategy revolves around a
Speaker 1: lot of biggling early early in the season and late
Speaker 1: in the season kind of that pre impost I will
Speaker 1: go back to cal calls because that dominant bowl is
Speaker 1: looking for that last cow on the landscape and he's
Speaker 1: willing to to you know, leave you know he we
Speaker 1: already talked about earlier. A lot of these bulls are
Speaker 1: checking throughout the night, they're checking throughout the day. They
Speaker 1: do They're working all the time to find this one
Speaker 1: cow that may be coming in or so. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: strongly agree with that early in the season, late in
Speaker 1: the season, go back to cal call because they're not
Speaker 1: looking to fight, they're looking to find that last cow.
Speaker 2: And I've even had it, Jason, and I'm sure you
Speaker 2: have to where one day I see a great bull
Speaker 2: with a group of cows and the next day he's
Speaker 2: all by himself and he'll come to a cow call Yep,
Speaker 2: that's somebody's kicked him off.
Speaker 1: I mean, we were in New Mexico last year. We
Speaker 1: watched it alternate almost daily. There was a very large
Speaker 1: five point first day we seen him, he had heard it.
Speaker 1: Eight next day we seen him. He was all by
Speaker 1: himself in a different ball and then he was able
Speaker 1: to pick up three cows and the name was all
Speaker 1: by himself. It was like, yeah, it's just it's like
Speaker 1: alternating and I don't know, I wish I knew whyre
Speaker 1: how come? Like was that big bull rolling through and
Speaker 1: he was checking on those cows enough? And he did
Speaker 1: it at night just to say like, all right, there's
Speaker 1: some cows in here that are ready. Thanks for thanks
Speaker 1: for being the watchdog. I got this now, you know.
Speaker 1: And we've we've seen bulls do that where like right
Speaker 1: at the break of day, he'll be with the herd
Speaker 1: and then you'll see him just leave and it's like, well,
Speaker 1: that bull's old, he's smart, he's big, he's he's smelled
Speaker 1: and seen what he needed to see and nothing he
Speaker 1: doesn't there's no reason for him to stick with them
Speaker 1: to the day where they're going to put him at risk.
Speaker 1: He's going to go back into his hiding hole until
Speaker 1: one of these nights he comes out and some of
Speaker 1: these these cows or you know, an estris and then
Speaker 1: he'll stay right. You know, they're they're just smart. They
Speaker 1: they know, they know what's coming up. And I feel
Speaker 1: that we have to play with that a little bit too.
Speaker 2: I completely agree with that.
Speaker 1: Well, it's been a great conversation, Brock. Do you have
Speaker 1: anything else we touched on that you've got like good
Speaker 1: data on that could be used for for hunting or
Speaker 1: making decisions out there, or just anything unique that people
Speaker 1: may not know about Elk that's just the cool facts
Speaker 1: about him.
Speaker 2: So I'm looking through data graphs to see if there's
Speaker 2: anything I want to add. One thing I would add
Speaker 2: maybe is that that there is a cost to reproduction.
Speaker 2: So if if a cow raises a calf successfully this year,
Speaker 2: she's less likely to be pregnant. If she was pregnant,
Speaker 2: that has no effect. But if she raised a calf,
Speaker 2: she's less likely to be pregnant because there is a
Speaker 2: real cost to raising a calf. Trying to think if
Speaker 2: there's anything else here, and I guess my take home
Speaker 2: messages if another take home would be I would trust
Speaker 2: the state biologists. I see in Utah a lot of
Speaker 2: sportsmen that believe they know how to manage better than
Speaker 2: the people that are trying to study and understand the biology.
Speaker 2: And I think we should listen because a lot of
Speaker 2: them have a lot of experience and they may have
Speaker 2: some really good insight. But I don't think the general
Speaker 2: idea that I know better than the biologists is right.
Speaker 2: And I see that a lot.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I don't want to make this political at all,
Speaker 1: especially coming from Washington. I feel like one of the
Speaker 1: big issues we deal with is the biologists truly are
Speaker 1: trying to do what's right, but yet we've got this
Speaker 1: commission that's been appointed that then will just go against
Speaker 1: what they've recommended and cut tags in half or you know,
Speaker 1: double tags here, double cow tags, and you're like gosh,
Speaker 1: dang it, you can read what the biologists recommended, who's
Speaker 1: the closest to this unit. But yet a commission, you know,
Speaker 1: made up of zoo keepers and whatever it may be,
Speaker 1: are are the ones that determine how many tags? And
Speaker 1: that's I guess that's where a lot of hunter frustration
Speaker 1: comes in. And I feel one of the bad pr
Speaker 1: things that happens is everything gets lumped together. Right, the
Speaker 1: biologists are the commission are the ones making the decisions.
Speaker 1: I think it's very hard for people to differentiate. It's
Speaker 1: just the the department's doing the wrong thing, which is
Speaker 1: what I see a lot here in Washington.
Speaker 2: That's right. And the other thing, I'd say, there is
Speaker 2: a vocal minority of public in Utah. Our Wildlife Board
Speaker 2: receives a lot of pressure from the vocal sportsman, and
Speaker 2: I think it's the vocal minority. Maybe it's not, maybe
Speaker 2: it's a vocal majority, but it's a lot of pressure
Speaker 2: and and and they often go against the recommendation of
Speaker 2: the biologists because of the vocal pressure that they've received
Speaker 2: from the public. Man, I think we have some of
Speaker 2: the best biologists in the world and they're trying their
Speaker 2: hardest to do what's right, and I think you should
Speaker 2: give them the benefit of the doubt and tell it's
Speaker 2: clear that they're not making a good choice.
Speaker 1: Yeah, No, it's it's such a complex intertwingling and then
Speaker 1: we got to try to navigate it. It's and I
Speaker 1: recognize it. Like there was a time where I killed
Speaker 1: the first legal bull that I called in every year
Speaker 1: or had a chance to kill. And now that I'm
Speaker 1: had more opportunity, I've got a little more experience under
Speaker 1: my belt, I want to go out there and hunt
Speaker 1: for a different reason. I want to go try to
Speaker 1: take a mature bowl and old bull off the landscape.
Speaker 1: And well, I'm very I want to be very respectful
Speaker 1: to what everybody wants. And it's very tough because now
Speaker 1: the biologist have you know Hunter X over here that
Speaker 1: wants maximum opportunity, Hunter why is now mad? Because or
Speaker 1: maybe not mad, Hunter why just wants trophy quality? Well,
Speaker 1: Hunter Z wants a mix of both and a good
Speaker 1: mix of both. Well, now, as a biologist and in
Speaker 1: a state agency, how do you provide that to to
Speaker 1: three different people? And and trust me, there's and you
Speaker 1: know as well as I do, there's there's way more
Speaker 1: than those three opinions. Somebody else wants something different. They
Speaker 1: want cow opportunities, and you know, the farmer within the
Speaker 1: unit wants a bunch of depredation tags, you know, and
Speaker 1: you try to have to balance all of this. It's
Speaker 1: just it's not an easy task. And I think we
Speaker 1: need to recognize all of that. And like you said,
Speaker 1: I think a lot of it does come back to
Speaker 1: the bile just do know what they're doing. They can
Speaker 1: listen to a lot of that, but as it's a
Speaker 1: very difficult decision to be made, I think that that
Speaker 1: makes everybody happy.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I have a lot of empathy for him because
Speaker 2: I see him get beat up all the time when
Speaker 2: they're trying to do it. I mean, we all care
Speaker 2: about right, Jason. Every one of us want to do
Speaker 2: what's best for the population. And we all have a
Speaker 2: little different idea of what is best for the population.
Speaker 2: And and we might be right because we have different
Speaker 2: values on what we want from the population. Yeah, and
Speaker 2: it's hard to balance all of those for sure.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's it's tough, but yeah, I appreciate you coming on, Brock,
Speaker 1: thanks for kind of you know that that little bit
Speaker 1: at the end, you know, trusted biologists. I think they
Speaker 1: do have the best interest of the animal and the
Speaker 1: unit until I'm gonna say this one more time and
Speaker 1: I'm gonna run away from it until politics get sprinkled
Speaker 1: in a little bit. But but yeah, it's it's it's
Speaker 1: been a great conversation. Glad to pick your brain, and
Speaker 1: good luck this year. And really appreciate you having you
Speaker 1: on the podcast.
Speaker 2: Well I really appreciate it. We have another ten days
Speaker 2: of elcaving. If you want to come down and go
Speaker 2: out on something.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I'll be We'll be chasing calves around on Monday
Speaker 1: and Tuesday.
Speaker 2: Here.
Speaker 1: I don't know what I'm getting myself into, but I'm
Speaker 1: look forward to learning.
Speaker 2: Oh it's fantastic. I love it.
Speaker 1: So all right, all right, thanks a lot, Brock, take care.
Speaker 2: Thank you very much. I appreciate it.