MyEagleNews.com // Grant County Hunting Journal 2019 // 23
2019 big game preview
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By Jim Yuskavitch
Oregon Hunters Association
he mild winter with warmer tem-
peratures and little snow abruptly
ended in late February when sev-
eral feet or more of the fluffy stuff
fell within a few days in many
parts of the state, especially in the higher ele-
vations that made it more difficult for deer,
elk and other wildlife to find food, shelter and
move around.
While that had many hunters concerned,
the big dumping had surprising little nega-
tive impact on deer, elk and other big game
populations, although it did cause problems in
some regions.
Overall, hunters can look to reasonably
good — or at least the same as last year —
big game hunting opportunities this year in
most parts of the state. Here’s a roundup of
what Oregon Department of Fish and Wild-
life wildlife biologists around Oregon recently
had to say about upcoming big game hunting
prospects.
Deer
While hair loss has been an ongoing issue
with North Coast black-tailed deer popula-
tions, Tillamook-based ODFW assistant dis-
trict wildlife biologist Dave Nuzum has not
seen as many instances this year, and in fact,
deer populations are pretty robust in his dis-
trict, which includes the Saddle Mountain,
Trask and Wilson units. While the Coast
Range got quite a bit of snow in late Febru-
ary, it melted off fairly quickly, and Nuzum
isn’t very concerned about excessive winter
mortality.
In Southwest Oregon, district wildlife biol-
ogist Tod Lum in Roseburg reports more deer
hair loss than normal. But it was confined to
the Rogue Valley area, and overall his black-
tailed deer populations are stable, overwinter
survival was good and he predicts a typical
hunting season for this year.
Even though the Cascades got hit pretty
hard by the late winter blizzard, Chris Yee,
Springfield-based district wildlife biologist,
has seen enough adult deer and fawns that
survived the winter to suspect that any win-
ter mortality is probably confined to specific
areas where the deer couldn’t find enough
food or shelter. But once you cross into mule
deer range the picture changes significantly.
“Deer are not looking good and fawn win-
ter survival was not great,” said district wild-
life biologist Greg Jackle in Prineville, whose
district covers much of the Ochoco Mountains.
Fawn rations are at 17 to 100 does in the
Grizzly unit, 27:100 in the Ochoco unit and
31:100 in the Maury unit, a far cry from the
50s-plus that the biologists shoot for. That low
fawn survival will also translate into fewer
juvenile bucks for hunters next season.
“It’s tough,” said Jackle. “That heavy
snowfall and delayed green-up really ham-
mered them.”
On the positive side, he has good num-
bers of adult bucks, which should still provide
decent hunting opportunities this year.
“Mule deer numbers are dropping across
the West and we are feeling that trend here in
Wallowa County,” said assistant district wild-
life biologist Shane Talley in Enterprise.
However, despite that overall decline
in populations, right now mule deer num-
bers in his district are stable, with good buck
ratios that should provide hunters with decent
opportunities for the upcoming season.
Mule deer are also struggling in the High
Desert region.
“We’re not heading in the direction that we
want to be heading,” said Hines-based assis-
tant district wildlife biologist Autumn Larkins.
Although the desert region was spared the
big blizzards that hit other parts of Oregon,
they still experienced some high winter mor-
tality. Larkins thinks that was because the deer
went into last winter in poor condition due to
the extensive drought southeastern Oregon
has been experiencing for a number of years
now. On a positive note, Larkins reports they
have decent buck ratios.
Elk
In Oregon, elk are generally doing well,
and in some places a little too well.
“Elk are faring pretty well,” said Shane
Talley in Enterprise. “We have some herds
where we are managing more intensively to
curb their growth.”
Talley expects Northeast Oregon elk hunt-
ers to have a good season this year. Despite
some low calf ratios in the Malheur River
unit, Larkins reports that there are still a lot of
elk in that unit along with the Silvies unit and
High Desert region.
The story is the same in the Ochoco region
of the Blue Mountains. Elk numbers are good
and stable, reports Greg Jackle.
“The bull elk population is stable to
increasing in the southern Blue Mountains,”
he said.
In the Grizzly unit, the bull ratio is 11:100.
“Hunters will see about the same opportu-
nities for elk as they have over the past few
years,” Jackle said.
However, the situation changes as you
move into the Cascade Mountains.
“Elk in the Cascades continue to decline,”
says Tod Lum, the Roseburg-based biologist.
That’s largely because of the decline in log-
ging on federal lands in the Cascade Moun-
tains resulting in less plant diversity for for-
age. Because of that decline, there have been
no cow hunts allowed throughout the Cas-
cades Mountains for the past several years to
try and boost numbers.
Said Lum, “For anyone who has been elk
hunting in the Cascades for the past several
years, it will be about the same — poor.”
Farther north in the Cascades, Chris Yee
notes that elk will move from federal lands
onto private industrial timberlands where
there is more logging in search of better hab-
itat. Despite the heavy February snowfall, it
didn’t result in much mortality as many elk
moved down into valley areas to get out of the
deep snow.
On the other hand, elk are faring well on
the North Coast.
“It’s looking pretty good,” says Tilla-
mook-based Dave Nuzum. “We have a little
more cutting in the Coast Range and a good
number of clearcuts are at the stage where are
they are more productive and attracting more
critters.”
As with deer, he expects to see good hunt-
ing opportunities for the upcoming season.
Bighorn Sheep
“Bighorn sheep are doing pretty well,” said
Talley. “We’ve been fighting pneumonia for
the past 20 to 25 years, but for now they are
doing pretty well.”
Well enough that ODFW has added two
new bighorn sheep hunts in Northeast Oregon
— one in the Wenaha unit and another in the
Snake River unit.
“We’ve got some good rams out there that
hunters should be excited about,” said Talley.
In Southeast Oregon, Larkins reports that
some bighorn herds are doing well while oth-
ers not so well. East Beatys Butte/Alvord
Peak bighorns are having ongoing problems.
“Something is going on there, and we can’t
seem to put our finger on it,” said Larkins.
ODFW captured a number of bighorns last
winter and tested them for disease, but they
came up clean. However, there is ongoing
concern that disease could spread to southeast
Oregon herds by infected sheep across the
border in Idaho and Nevada.
On the other hand, the Steens Mountain
herd is doing very well. Larkins credits to
some extent the removal of cougars as part of
the Mule Deer Initiative that also benefited the
bighorns.
Rocky Mountain Goat
Rocky mountain goats have been faring
very well across the Blue Mountains and into
the central Oregon Cascades where they were
reintroduced in 2010.
“Goats are doing well and are starting to
fill up some of our underutilized habitat,” said
Talley.
Any hunter who draws a goat tag has a
very good expectation of a successful hunt.
Pronghorn
Pronghorn numbers are generally stable.
“That’s a species we usually are not too
concerned about because we manage them
so carefully,” said Autumn Larkins. How-
ever, with the past seven or eight years of
drought, Larkins is concerned that it might
start to eventually take a toll. She notes that
for now ODFW is not concerned enough to
adjust tag numbers. Jackle reports that the
pronghorn herds in the southern Blue Moun-
tains region are generally stable. He notes that
hunting pronghorns in his district is a little dif-
ferent than the typical desert pronghorn hunt-
ing experience as the animals there utilize for-
ested areas.
Bear and Cougar
Both black bear and cougar numbers are
healthy across the state, with the highest pop-
ulations of bears along the coast, especially
toward the southern parts, while northeast
and southwest Oregon have the largest cou-
gar populations.
In general, many ODFW biologists believe
that the cougar population is at carrying
capacity for much of the state. However, there
has been an increase in cat numbers in recent
years along the mid-coast that may be starting
to expand northwards.
Dave Nuzum in Tillamook notes that he
is seeing increasing hunter harvest of cou-
gars along with more road kills and damage
reports.
“It used to be a big deal when a hunter
brought in a cougar in this district,” he says.
“Now, not so much.”
Black bear populations are stable and solid
in the forested habitat they prefer. Larkins
has noticed an increase in bear harvest in the
northern part of her district that might indi-
cate an increasing population in the southern
Ochocos.
Reprinted with permission from the Ore-
gon Hunters Association.