LJWorld.com / Colorado elk herd careens out of control

Archive for Sunday, July 21, 2002

Nonresident license fee cut by $200 as state officials beg hunters to take more cows

Colorado Division of Wildlife

July 21, 2002

Denver — Colorado's elk herd, the largest in North America, is over objective. The recovery of elk in Colorado has been too successful for the range to support.

Thus state officials are encouraging hunters to take more cows.

Drought, wildfires, predation by mountain lions, increased hunting pressure and habitat loss due to urban sprawl along the eastern foothills of the Rockies, known locally as the Front Range nothing seems to put a dent in Colorado's burgeoning elk herd, the largest in North America.

Colorado has 305,000 elk, more than any other state or Canadian province. A century ago, wildlife officials estimated the state's elk population at fewer than 2,000 animals, making it the most wildly successful elk recovery of the 20th century too successful, in fact, for the range to support.

Hence the Division is literally begging hunters to shoot cow elk. A succession of mild winters has produced a cow and calf survival rate of 95 percent.

Last year, 440,129 big game licenses were sold for a total of $45.5 million. Elk hunters accounted for most of both limited license and over-the-counter sales, but state official Jim Ellenberger says "their harvest of 42,500 animals was well below our objective of 59,500. We need to bring elk numbers down."

This has resulted in more cow licenses being issued this year and more game management units where hunters can obtain an additional tag to kill an extra elk. Additional licenses are available to both residents and nonresidents in 85 of Colorado's 178 big game units.

Also, unlimited either-sex elk tags will be sold in 17 game units. And finally, the nonresident price of antlerless elk licenses has been reduced from $450 to $250 to encourage more nonresidents to hunt cows.

Nearly 123,000 antlerless and either-sex elk licenses were made available to hunters for the upcoming season, an increase of 14,000 over 2001.

The number of bull elk licenses for the first limited elk season decreased slightly from 20,600 to 19,800, but 41,432 leftover licenses are now available to hunters who didn't draw or want to buy an additional license.