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