Scott Sandsberry wrote another great column on tribal wildlife management. He followed up his column from a couple of months ago with a new one dispelling rumors of impacts of tribal hunting.
Read the entire column here, but this is a good sample:
“Guys were saying, ‘Yeah, we were sitting around the campfire and we saw this black helicopter come over and we know it was you guys herding elk out of the area so the hunters can’t get them,’ and that kind of deal. I’m going, really guys? Black helicopters? You obviously haven’t been reading the paper about our budget problems.”
As for why so many hunters weren’t seeing elk and where the elk were, well, that depends on who you talk to. I talked to a guy who guides hunters drawn for special branch-antler bull permits and he said they saw more elk where they were hunting than they usually do. (I won’t say where that is; if a guy’s got a good hunting spot, I’m not about to give it away.) I talked to other hunters who said they saw lots of elk for a day or two and then didn’t see anything after that.
