Range Wide Wildlife Declines | Fresh Tracks Weekly (Ep. 73)
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- čas přidán 2. 05. 2024
- This week, we are talking about the overall decline of wildlife, shifting baselines, and the biggest factors that affect long-term population levels.
Randy Newberg, Congresswoman Debbie Dingell, and Congressman Bruce Westerman received Theodore Roosevelt’s Conservation Awards for 2024!
We have a quick recap from last week’s episode. Michael, Jace, Kara, and I went to shoot in the NRL hunter competition in Idaho, where we learned a lot about precision shooting.
In Pennsylvania, two bills have been introduced that could remove the longstanding prohibition of Sunday hunting.
President Biden just expanded the Berryessa Snow Mountain National Monument by nearly 14 thousand acres to protect an 11-mile-long ridgeline named Molok Luyuk, which means Condor Ridge in the Native Patwin people’s language.
Wildlife biologists are beginning to test the feasibility and accuracy of using drones to conduct population surveys, in particular, drones with thermal cameras that can detect animal heat signatures through various covers.
An article by Doc Collins, recently published in Outdoor Life, summarized recent legislation passed by the U.S. House of Representatives that could significantly impact hunters and anglers.
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Really enjoyed this week's episode!
Favoring one species over another can have a big impact on the populations of other species.In the early 1970's, there was a major push in Utah to increase the elk population. In order to do that, the DWR (it went by a different name then) created all sorts of extended mule deer seasons with huge bag limits in order to clear out the mule deer population so they could introduce elk. Many of these locations had never had elk before. In the Pavant mountain range (where I hunted deer), the mule deer population crashed after they extended the deer season until the end of the year and increased the bag limit to 7 per hunter (bucks, does and fawns). It was a massacre because the deer were hunted in their winter ranges (where they had never been hunted before). That happened in 1972. In 1973, they planted elk in the Pavant range, and area that had never held elk before. The mule deer went from abundant to scarce. You are proud of the RMEF, but those same people were the ones pushing the expansion of the elk population at the expense of the mule deer population. This wasn't just a one-off thing. the same things was repeated in dozens of locations. The mule deer population in Utah in those areas where elk wer introduced has never recovered.
That’s an interesting topic. Nevada elk population increased to 19000 back in like 2017 they handed out a ton of tags. Apparently they said Nevada elk numbers needs to hover around the 13k to 15k range the landscape can’t handle more. Our deer population has dropped dramatically! Just in the last 5 years it’s gone down 30k to 40k! But our feral horse population is booming between 40k and 50k!! Unreal
@@Lexidezi225
You’re right about everything but the mustang population. The horse and burro numbers are estimated to be about 75,000 right now, down from 95,000 a few years ago.
www.blm.gov/press-release/blm-2024-wild-horse-and-burro-estimates-show-reduced-overpopulation
Randy hit it on the head, especially for for prairie/Rocky Mountain area of North America...loss of contiguous quality habitat availability which is mostly due to ever increasing human population away from the cities. Congratulations to Randy and keep up the good work guys.
Thank you for Fresh Tracks Weekly. I appreciate you guys bringing up and discussing these types of topics. This is a great service to all sportsmen.
Congrats on the award and recognition of your efforts Randy.
Excellent podcast, guys! I agree that habitat preservation and restoration is HUGE. We need to educate all sectors of the population- recreational, agricultural, AND residential. The harms of animal sanctuary and coexistence with urban expansion need addressed. And a serious topic is the widespread use of chemical herbicide application and its negative impact on wildlife is a critical topic. We need to rein in the widespread use of chemicals.
Thanks, guys!
always about quality of habitat totally agree Randy...especially winter range here in Colorado as Marcus mentions
its so sad to see some herds go from 40k to 18k in the matter of a few years
a lot of herds here have halved in the past handful of years and its not just from the bad winter of 22/23
Congratulations to Randy! Great job to all of you!
Good information. Thanks for educating me.
Congratulations, well deserved, this is one of my favorites
Congratulations Randy! I wish you were my local Representative! Keep up the fight.
Congrats Randy well deserved!!!
Conservation of open spaces & Wildlife Habitat is by far the most important issue of our time. Great job articulating this complex subject. This is why it is so critical that the BLM Conservation Rule prevail and is implemented as robustly as other uses.
Glad you guys had fun at the match! My wife and I RO’d stage 6 (the tough to find coyotes off the cliff). Hope to see you guys at some other matches!
You guys are bringing intelligent views to the issue of wildlife numbers.
Just alot more people hunting Lions fox coyotes wolfs Big thing is no trespassing private land cut off the public land.
Great information Randy and Marcus
Unfortunately there's very few people who are interested in restricting their own recreational access. It's always someone else who should be restricted in their minds. It's not all non hunters though.
How many more ATV's or Side x Side vehicles are out on the landscape now vs 25 years ago? How many people can't wait to get out and find those shed antlers as soon as they fall? Both are majority hunter involved yet hunters blame anything and anyone else just like the general recreationalists. We need to do better ourselves.
Yea I see the sidexside hunters every year flying right past me while I’m stalking the animals they don’t even know are there. Throwing their beer cans out as they go. It’s pathetic the kinda slob selfish humans that are part of that whole crowd
Wolves have a huge impact of elk and deer numbers. No amount of habitat is going to change that. They are very efficient and getting much more numerous. And they fill is with household pets and domestic animals when game get more scarce. I am a zoologist and habitat is key, but heavy predation has a substantial impact on populations.
Why did we have millions of Bison when the European migrants arrived here --------- and we had lots of wolves, mountain lions, even grizzly bears??
@@sdslim6929
Because Native Americans trapped and killed the wolves before Europeans arrived.
@@rowdyhoundsmanand they kept the coyote in check the wolves and humans did their job
Poor Pronghorn today here in AZ have high predation mortality rate having nothing to do with the weather
@@sdslim6929millions more animals, and hundreds of millions of acres they no longer have access to with obstructions blocking important migration paths as well even further impacting the wildlife and efficiency of the herd.
Great discussion you two. I agree and have been preaching for years, habitat --- habitat --- habitat! But, a few points you may have missed. Federal grazing permits are a major deterrent to good habitat when we have challenging climate conditions that we are experiencing the last many years. You touched on development, but a major point in my state is county/state governments zoning to enhance tax base to the detriment of habitat! If it can be developed --- it should be encouraged (same with farming practices and land management). You mentioned energy development, but that is a major reason for fragmentation for some species and the encouragement of government, along with antiquated mining laws to develop minerals, plays a very large roll in habitat usefulness for wildlife ---- not necessarily destruction. Some species just will not live there. Thanks for bringing up the human population factor ---- most groups don't want to talk about that.
In theory, climate factors will be considered in future NEPA analyses regarding the issuance of grazing permits/allotment disposition. Given the variety of new projects fed agency staff are tasked with, I can’t see the majority finding time/funding to dedicate to reevaluating current valid permits. Also… Multiple-Use Sustained-Yield Act is probably the bane of your existence with respect to the issues you’ve addressed…minus the zoning concerns.
@@_mtn Agreed! NEPA has struggled in court ----- actually, I was the winner in one court case years back. Admittedly, it was a sympathetic court. The SCOTUS has proven many times they are not afraid to twist the language of any law by congress, as evidenced by Rapanose and Sackett. I served on a corporate board with Jim Range, one of the principle authors of the Clean Water Act, and Republican lobbyist along with his Law Degree. We had long discussions. I also had lunch with Jim Banks, another lawyer and Republican operative, also one of the main authors of the CWA. Range has since passed and I do not know about Banks. They both strongly indicated that by including "waters of the US" in the bills language, that would cover all the WOTUS ---- boy were they wrong according to the SCOTUS. Grasslands seem to be in that same paradigm. Grasslands and habitat are to have the same weight in management decisions ------ but it doesn't seem to work that way so far.
Here in Colorado, we got less elk than the other states believe or not, but it’s true, yet we give out more tags than the other states and let out of staters come in as much as they’d like :(
Another thing is 4 yrs ago they changed the dates to later and it has destroyed, absolutely obliterated the big buck #’s! Super sad! Terrible job by our fish and game!
Thanks for the good conservation content.
I am curious of statistics of deer that get hunted and die vs total population. Many narratives about mule deer extinction but i would like to see the raw data rather than anecdotes. Do you have any of that data Marcus?
I live in Missouri and MO conservation is investigating the decline in turkey populations. I think I perceive that there are less turkey because there is less public land to hunt on, than when I was younger, and the hunting pressure has increased a lot because their is less public land. The turkeys seek sanctuary after opening day and know where safe private land is. Does this mean there are fewer turkeys on the landscape than when I was growing up? I am not sure.
I wish we could get the Forrest service to restore habitat in Montana. Pine Beatles have destroyed the forrest. Dead fall nightmare that animals won't use. The only sign you see is on the edges. Well-groomed private land that has been logged or burned hosts the greatest abundance of wildlife.
Less turkeys in Kansas would be an awesome development for quail populations
More people, more problems.
I really dislike the cost argument on hunting ammunition, for those of shooting a lot through the year yes it’s expensive but that’s a minority of people. I really don’t care if the one box of ammunition you buy every other year costs a few extra dollars. I’m also not for mandating non lead use, my problem is the idiotic argument not the position. Personally I use both, I use solid coppers in my 7rem mag for western hunting but still run old school cup and core for most everything else that I use for whitetail and other general purpose. again, I’m not arguing for lead bans I’m against such mandates my problem
Is the idiotic cost argument.
Marcus' "like" count is 150
I really need that PA Sunday hunting ban to not exist anymore. So hard to hunt effectively with really only having one day a week to hunt.
Crossbows, I've done a study to disprove that Crossbows have no effect. Also I'm for no hunting on Sunday. It's about time for people to put their money where their mouth is, "CONSERVATIVES."