[rifle666]

Do elk eat deer?
all my deer holes are full of elk, i usually see at least 100 deer a day with 30% buckies, this year hiked the soles of my rockies and only saw 20 deer. a few baby buckies. so where did all my deer go?

I have decided that the elk ate them

 

[TAK]

Do elk eat deer?
all my deer holes are full of elk, i usually see at least 100 deer a day with 30% buckies, this year hiked the soles of my rockies and only saw 20 deer. a few baby buckies. so where did all my deer go?

I have decided that the elk ate them

Are you serious? Everyone knows that Deer turn into Elk after 4 years....

 

[coyoteslayer]

MULE DEER VERSES ELK By Art Isberg

It seems nearly inconceivable that the grand return of one big-game animal could so adversely impact another, but that is exactly what has happened over many areas in the west where elk have made a strong comeback. The reasons for this have been known and understood for some time now, and once again we find the answer in habitat and food choices both animals make.

Although deer and elk do have some overlapping in their diets, elk eat a far greater variety of grasses and some forbs, while mule deer mainly rely on shrubs and some forbs making them more selective in what they require. Stomach and body size also require that deer eat a higher quality of food, while elk can fare better when these choices are severally limited and winter snows cover the land. Compressed on winter range, elk are more aggressive than deer, can browse higher out of reach of deer, and in general come through winter with females in better shape carrying their unborn young for spring.

Bitter winter temperatures, high winds and deep snows always have a more pronounced effect on deer than elk, and this is constantly proven in the falling number of mule deer after prolonged severe winters. Elk also survive in greater numbers because where plant succession expressed in regrowth of taller timber and heavy cover has taken over blocking out sunlight for lower plant production deer need, they can shift their diets easier to lower quality foods and still survive.

The DWR also manages Elk and Deer very different. They manage our elk herds for the most part like they manage deer on the henry mtns. They limit hunting pressure by giving out very few tags. They dont have a general season for elk that is divided into 5 large regions. They micromanage the elk a little closer. Imagine what our deer herds would be like if they were managed the same way. They only bad part would be that less people would get to hunt deer.

This is for Wyo2ut. I wonder how many people would line up to buy a spike deer tag.

 

[landshark]

Is it in a spike area? If so, just let me know and I can arrange for a few spikes to face execution for eating one of their own species.

 

[wyoming2utah]

This is for Wyo2ut. I wonder how many people would line up to buy a spike deer tag.

This is a conversation from a recent RAC meeting (July 7, 2007):

Steve Flinders: "Kent that was a good treatise on deer and elk management in Utah. The obvious question based on your selling of the elk management program in Utah is why don't we have yearling only hunts for deer? Has the division looked at it? I know for seven years we batted it around. Have you looked at any other states and what do you think it would do for us?"

Kent Hersey:"Well a large objective of the spike hunts is to bring those bull: cow ratios down. We do not currently have any deer units in the state where our buck: doe ratios are through the roof like this."

Anis Aoude: "The reason we don't do it with deer is they're not as long lived and they're more susceptible to winter kill. So if you do a yearling deer hunt and you end up having a bad winter you're back to square one, you've killed all your yearlings, you don't have. So deer is kind of a different animal, they're more susceptible to winter killing and they're not as long lived. And that's one of the main reasons we don't do it with deer."

Interestingly, the southern RAC "batted" this very idea around for seven years. And, if the DWR felt it were necessary to take away much of our general season opportunity and change deer hunting in this manner, I would be willing to bet that more than just 11,0000 tags would be sold...unless of course 11,000 were the limit; then, only 11,000 would be sold. Luckily, though, it appears as though our deer hunting will NOT be changed in this way!