Contract helicopter capture crews were able to subdue 42 cow elk from the Rawhide Herd during the middle of winter, which began in 2018 and will last until 2021. GPS collars were attached to the new southeastern Wyoming research specimens, collecting data that ultimately answered many basic biological questions.
It may surprise you that the Wyoming Military Department commissioned the work. It’s because a significant portion of the Rawhide Herd’s habitat serves as Camp Guernsey Joint Training Center.
Every fall, these Platte County wapiti must avoid more than just hunters’ bullets and arrows. They also have to deal with aerial training missions, artillery explosions, gunfire on the range, and hundreds of soldiers honing their skills.
According to a Western EcoSystems Technology report published in the Wyoming Game and Fish Department’s annual update for the Laramie Region, the military learned a lot, and so did state wildlife managers.
Military training activities displaced elk, particularly in the winter, and they sought out rugged areas. Surprisingly, animals preferred higher elevations during the coldest months of the year. However, the herd spent the majority of its time in the same area, rather than migrating.
“There’s really no traditional migration or seasonal movements like you’d see in a mountain herd, where they’re getting pushed down because of weather,” Game and Fish biologist Keaton Weber said.
Weber and colleagues’ research insights are helping them gain an advantage in an unrelated change affecting the Rawhide Elk Herd. It’s one of a few Wyoming elk herds that are being counted for the first time.
“We’ve never managed this [herd] based on population,” Weber informed me. “It’s because it’s more than 90% private land. It’s a very difficult herd to manage because it relies on access, just like the Laramie Range herds.”
According to Game and Fish Deputy Chief of Wildlife Justin Binfet, four other difficult-to-count elk herds were in the same situation. The Targhee Herd lives in the western Tetons near the Idaho state line; the Uinta Herd lives in far southwestern Wyoming, straddling the Utah state line; the Petition Herd lives in the southern Red Desert; and the Pine Ridge Herd lives on ranchland north of Casper.
“It really is meaningful to have estimates for herd numbers, where you can,” Binfet replied. “But it’s also extremely challenging. It’s not as simple as some people think it is. Elk can travel long distances, respond to pressure, and pioneer new territories — and they can quickly move in and out of the state.
The changes in how to manage these herds are due in part to the state’s dissatisfaction with the current approach, which is based on “satisfaction.”
“I think it was a good idea to start with,” Binfet said. “But [satisfaction-based objectives] proved problematic in their practice, a decade and a half later.”
It’s a system that Game and Fish began using with seven elk herds and several other pronghorn and mule deer herds in about 2010. All were difficult or expensive to estimate due to diffuse distributions, a large amount of private land, or factors such as ungulates that cross state lines, Binfet said.
Herds are considered to be meeting their objectives when more than 60% of landowners and hunters report being satisfied with the herd’s status. However, Binfet admits that administering the system has proven difficult. Surveying enough landowners in a herd area every year can be a lot of work, he said, and low satisfaction scores can mean either too many or not enough elk.
Binfet also cited Wyoming’s recently revised compensation program for grass eaten by elk and other ungulates as a contributing factor to the change. The new payment plan, which was preceded by a legislative fight, employs calculations that vary depending on whether a herd is below or above its population target.
Creating population targets for the first time can be difficult, even “scary,” he admitted. There is currently no hard data to work with. And in some areas, such as the Petition Herd’s habitat in the Red Desert, there are “massive geographic expanses” with low elk populations.
“If you classify or don’t classify one giant group of 900 elk, it can really skew your assessment,” Binfet told me.
Wildlife managers are turning to technology for assistance. Pilots flew over the Petition Herd area at approximately 3,000 feet altitude and used infrared technology to assist with counting. Artificial intelligence is also being used to help count elk captured in aerial images.
But it’s still a work in progress.
North of Casper in the Pine Ridge Herd, the state agency is set on proposing a first-ever population objective of 1,500 elk, Binfet said. But assessments for other herds aren’t yet finalized, he added.
In the Rawhide Herd, in and around Camp Guernsey, a recent aerial survey estimated 830 elk, factoring in an adjustment based on animals’ “sightability” on the landscape, according to Weber, the Game and Fish biologist.
“We use that number with caution,” he said. “Due to these sightability designs and this herd being so unevenly dispersed across the herd unit. It was challenging. We think the number is low.”
The first-ever proposed population objective for the Rawhide Herd that Game and Fish rolled out to the public was 1,800 elk. It’s a number — along with the other herd goals — that the Wyoming Game and Fish Commission will review at its September meeting in Lander.
Regardless of the final figure, Amanda Thimmayya, the Wyoming Military Department’s natural resource program manager, believes it will have little impact on Camp Guernsey’s operations.
The training center hosts an annual hunt and also serves as the Broom Creek Hunter Management Area. However, there are limitations to increasing hunting pressure in an area where savvy elk can easily seek refuge, she explained.
“We can only provide so much opportunity when we’re surrounded by private lands,” she said.
