Return of the Elk

Elk Natural History Facts

Elk Beyond The Pine Ridge

Managing the Herds

Counting Elk

Roping Elk

Managing the Herds
Photos and text by Eric Fowler
Published in NEBRASKAland Magazine, October 2010

Nebraska Game and Parks Commission biologists are currently taking a conservative approach when determining how many elk permits are issued each year, issuing enough permits to allow the herds to grow slowly. But biologists know there will come a time when landowner tolerance of elk and the crop damage the animals can cause reaches a threshold that herd growth will need to be stopped through increased harvest. Biologists have been preparing for that day as they have developed statutes and regulations in recent years, with the primary focus on increased cow harvest.

Until recently, statutes discouraged both landowners and the general public from even applying for cow elk permits. For the general public, all elk permits, bull or cow, were issued on a once-in-a-lifetime basis. Not wanting to use their one opportunity on a cow permit, many hunters only applied for bull permits. That changed in 2006, when it became possible to draw a cow permit every three years even if you had already drawn a bull permit. As a result, the number of applications for cow permits increased substantially. The statutes were changed again in 2010, and individuals are now eligible for a cow permit once every five years, a move made to make the odds of an individual who hasn’t drawn a permit greater than those who have.

Until 2010, landowners were eligible for a permit, bull or cow, every three years. Like the general public, many didn’t apply for landowner cow permits, and 20 to 30 went unsold each year. A change made this year allows landowners who draw a cow tag to apply for a bull tag the following year. Additionally, immediate family members not living at home, as well as those leasing land but not living on it, are now eligible for landowner elk permits.

“We’ve struggled to meet our antlerless elk harvest goals,” said Kit Hams, the Commission’s big game program manager. “The primary reason is cow success is low, and landowners were not purchasing cow permits. With the new regulations this year, landowners purchased all of the available cow permits for the first time in five years.”

In 2009 the Commission also returned to a split elk season that allows cow elk to be harvested in all management units in December, when herds are often concentrated on winter feeding areas and more vulnerable. This also alleviated another factor that contributed to low hunter success on cow permits -- some landowners gave preference to hunters with bull permits, leaving those with cow tags fewer places to hunt. The change helped boost statewide hunter success on cow permits to 58 percent in 2009, a number that had been as low as 30 percent in some years and was seldom higher than 50 percent. For comparison, success on bull permits has been 73 percent or greater in all but four seasons since 1995.

The boundaries of the state’s seven elk management units have been expanded from areas that were centered around core elk ranges, a move made to allow hunters to target new elk herds as they form. As a result, roughly the western two-thirds of the state is now included in these units. Elk zones -- areas in which elk herds are firmly established and where people must own or lease land to be eligible for landowner permits -- are regularly added or expanded as herds grow or develop new core ranges.

Hams said each of these moves will allow the Commission to increase cow permits and stem the growth of the herds. “At some point we’re going to be [at the limit for herd size], and we’re not going to let that Pine Ridge herd or that North Platte River herd grow any more,” Hams said. “I don’t know when that will be, but when we reach it, we’ll want to be able to increase permits enough to control it, and we have to know what to expect in hunter success when we do. As we increase season length and increase permits, we should reach a point where cow elk harvest success stabilizes instead of bouncing all over the place.”

The growth both in elk herds and range has meant a growth in opportunity for hunters. The Commission issued a record 272 permits for the 2010 season, a 31 percent increase from last year and a seven-fold increase from 1995. Two-thirds of the permits are available to the general public and a third to landowners. An increase in permits hasn’t lessened the relative demand. Odds of drawing a coveted general bull tag in 2009 ranged from 1-in-21 in the Niobrara River Unit to 1-in-115 in the Box Elder Unit. Those odds were higher in 2010, when 2,290 total applications were received for elk permits, up 400 from 2009 and more than double the 1,000 applications received in 2004.

One reason for the high demand is that a hunter’s chance of harvesting a trophy-class bull is as good in Nebraska as it is nearly anywhere in North America. In 2008 and 2009, about 90 percent of the bulls harvested were mature bulls with six points or more per antler, the mean length of which was 47 to 49 inches. “Any time you allow a herd to grow and you keep bull harvest about the same, you’ll have trophy animals,” Hams said. “I think it initially just happened, and then we saw that as ‘Wow! This is pretty fantastic. Lets try to keep it this way.’”

The Commission’s elk management plan sets a goal of at least 50 percent success for hunters with bull permits, and that mature bulls make up 70 percent of the harvest. Biologists also want to maintain a post-harvest ratio of 40 branched-antlered bulls per 100 cows. When these factors, which ensure hunter satisfaction, breeding efficiency and genetic intregity of the herd, are met, as they have been recently, biologists will issue more bull permits. At least for the foreseeable future, that trend should continue.