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Cougars kill far more elk than wolves

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Cougars kill far more elk than wolves

Postby Lefty » 08 09, 2019 •  [Post 1]

https://www.spokesman.com/blogs/outdoors/2017/sep/27/cougars-kill-far-more-elk-wolves-idaho-panhandle-study-suggests/
If you want to see the charts


Cougars kill far more elk that wolves on Idaho Panhandle, study suggests
A mountain lion caches an elk carcass in the is photo from a trail cam put out by Idaho Fish and Game Department big-game researchers. (Idaho Fish and Game Department)
A mountain lion caches an elk carcass in the is photo from a trail cam put out by Idaho Fish and Game Department big-game researchers. (Idaho Fish and Game Department)
WILDLIFE -- Mountain lions are far more likely to kill a cow or calf elk than wolves in the Idaho Panhandle. And nutrition plays a large role in how many calves survive a winter.
Those are some of the findings emerging in the first two years of an elk mortality study that involves capturing and putting radio collars on cow and calf elk and monitoring how they live and die.
I referred to this study in 2016 and again last week as Idaho Fish and Game Department biologists begin using the data for wildlife management.
A Montana study on elk in the Bitterroot Mountains has had similar results.
Here's an update on the Idaho Panhandle study by Fish and Game biologist Laura Wolf.

The Panhandle region placed 172 GPS radio-collars on 6-month old elk calves in the Coeur d’Alene and St. Joe River drainages since 2015. A couple reasons we collared so many elk was to determine survival rates and for those elk that didn’t make it, find out why they died.
The GPS collars have a signal that activates once the collar hasn’t moved for several hours, indicating a mortality. Next, the collar sends an e-mail to biologists with the location of the collar. It’s pretty amazing technology, something that wasn’t available just a few years ago, and it’s giving us new insight into what’s affecting the elk population. We try to hike out to every dead elk within a day or two of receiving the mortality signal so we have the best chance of figuring out what happened.

It can be difficult to look at a partially consumed elk carcass and determine how the animal died. The more of the elk that is there, the easier it is to figure out what happened. We want to find out why it died, or in our language, determine cause-specific mortality. That’s why we try to get to the elk as soon as possible.
Once we get to the location and find the elk, we take a crime scene approach. We conduct a careful search around the carcass looking for predator tracks, hair, drag trails in the dirt or snow, broken branches that indicate a chase, and blood on vegetation or the ground. Next, we perform a necropsy (basically an autopsy for an animal). We skin the entire animal looking for teeth or claw punctures and bruising on the skin or muscles (which means that something injured it while it was still alive). We look for broken bones, parasites, and abnormalities of the internal organs. Lastly, we saw open a femur bone to examine bone marrow. Bone marrow is normally hard and white and is the last fat reserve the body uses during starvation. Soft and red bone marrow means the elk was in very poor condition when it died.
The two most common predators that kill older calves in the Panhandle are mountain lions and wolves, but their kill patterns are quite distinctive, hence the crime scene approach. Lions tend to ambush and bite the neck or throat of their prey. The attack site and the kill site are often close together. Lions often drag their prey to a more hidden spot and will cache the animal by covering it with snow, leaves, or needles. Lions have a habit of shearing hair, which looks like someone cut the hair with sharp scissors. Lions often enter the chest cavity first and eat the internal organs.
Wolves, on the other hand, are not ambush hunters. They typically chase their prey long distances, biting hindquarters, flanks, neck, and face. Wolves will eat the animal where it died and often scatter the carcass throughout the site as each wolf takes its own piece to consume. Wolves will often chew on all the bones. The site of an animal killed by wolves is often a much messier scene than that of one killed by a mountain lion. There’s often very little of the carcass remaining when we get there.
So, what have we learned? In the normal to mild winters of 2015 and 2016, 80% of the elk calves survived from January to June; 14% were killed by mountain lions, 3% were killed by wolves, 1% died of disease, and 2% were unknown deaths. A survival rate of 80% for 6 month old calves is very high.
In the colder, snowy winter of 2017, 50% of the elk calves survived. Interestingly enough, the predation rates were similar to the milder winters; 16% were killed by mountain lions and 6% were killed by wolves. Starvation (16%), heavy parasite loads (2%), and disease (2%) accounted for the difference in survival rates among the winters. Calves were in worse body condition in 2017 as determined by bone marrow condition. We could not determine cause of death in 8% of the cases.
What do these calf survival rates mean for the elk population? We are working on some modeling now, incorporating other information like cow survival rates, calf:cow ratios that we get during our winter aerial surveys, and the percent of spikes in the harvest. Once we get the results of the modeling , we’ll report to you on that.
Our jobs can certainly be gruesome at times, but it rewarding to determine what is happening with our elk populations so we can make informed management decisions.
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Re: Cougars kill far more elk than wolves

Postby >>>---WW----> » 08 09, 2019 •  [Post 2]

Colorado Parks & Wildlife has been using these types of collars for at least 15 years that I know of for sure. And probably much longer. So the use of them is not so uncommon as many may think

I suppose it could be that Idaho may have a new and more improved version. But it sounds like they were used in Colorado to track migration movement as well as locating dead animals.
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Re: Cougars kill far more elk than wolves

Postby Elkhunttoo » 08 09, 2019 •  [Post 3]

Let's see if the "late" elk herds in Yellowstone would like to chime in on this conversation, it would be interesting to see what they have to say ;)

I put very little confidence in studies, I have been involved in enough of them to know that almost all of them are to biased and can make the numbers look however they want.

For example, sage grouse nest study numbers changed dramatically after they put cameras on the nests. Fox, that were hardly listed before the cameras were placed, became the number 1 predator after the cameras were placed. (These studies were done with the same approach design up to the nest and examine the sight) When humans are "making educated guesses" that is exactly what it is.

There might be some real truths in this one... and, there also might not be...interesting read though
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Re: Cougars kill far more elk than wolves

Postby ishy » 08 10, 2019 •  [Post 4]

Ya pretty interesting that a study in the 90's claimed they collared 54 elk calves and 37 were killed by bears. This study doesn't even mention bears?
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Re: Cougars kill far more elk than wolves

Postby Lefty » 08 10, 2019 •  [Post 5]

“Study suggests”

Gotta realize this was one place one time even a large area it still isn’t general.

An area we use to hunt moose winter kill the biggest threat was wolves , the pack killed off the next was grizzlies, well one grizzly was killing a handful every year

But what they found out the biggest killer of winter moose over time was trains and trucks

The wolves were killing every moose that wintered in the valley when the wolves were present
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Re: Cougars kill far more elk than wolves

Postby Swede » 08 10, 2019 •  [Post 6]

I think studies tent to confirm what we already believe. That is in part due to how the studies are set up.
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Re: Cougars kill far more elk than wolves

Postby 2Rivers » 08 10, 2019 •  [Post 7]

I didn't read the link but assume for every cougar killing one elk what is the pack size per elk kill?
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Re: Cougars kill far more elk than wolves

Postby wawhitey » 08 10, 2019 •  [Post 8]

ishy wrote:Ya pretty interesting that a study in the 90's claimed they collared 54 elk calves and 37 were killed by bears. This study doesn't even mention bears?
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Re: Cougars kill far more elk than wol

Postby Lefty » 08 10, 2019 •  [Post 9]

Swede wrote:I think studies tent to confirm what we already believe. That is in part due to how the studies are set up.


Absolutely
While elk are the same they are all different , wolves and cougar too

I would love to have some research on our local lion population the move in and out of town how many house pets make up their diet.
Individual animal habits can skew research
I tracked a lion one year that killed two yearling moose and a cow moose that’s all that lion ate for 8 weeks and the Tom only shared with the magpies
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