Sterile woods

[Deertick]

Ask someone else where to find elk. Ask ME where NOT to find elk! I know!

When I look at a map, it looks like 10s of thousands of acres of \"habitat\" ... but much of that is nothing of the sort.

Mature woods often are mono-cultures of 1 particular species of tree. The floor is barren decomposed granite, and nothing is really happening there. No birds chirping, no bunnies hopping. And no elk chirping or hopping, either.

Recognizing diversity in plant life seems to me to be a key to most kinds of hunting, from pheasants, to deer, to whatever ... so the reverse is true, too, I think: Recognizing boring mono-cultures as the sterile environments they are helps cross them off the \"list\" of spots to hunt.

Thoughts?

 

[elkmtngear]

Ask someone else where to find elk. Ask ME where NOT to find elk! I know!

When I look at a map, it looks like 10s of thousands of acres of \"habitat\" ... but much of that is nothing of the sort.

Mature woods often are mono-cultures of 1 particular species of tree. The floor is barren decomposed granite, and nothing is really happening there. No birds chirping, no bunnies hopping. And no elk chirping or hopping, either.

Recognizing diversity in plant life seems to me to be a key to most kinds of hunting, from pheasants, to deer, to whatever ... so the reverse is true, too, I think: Recognizing boring mono-cultures as the sterile environments they are helps cross them off the \"list\" of spots to hunt.

Thoughts?

John, I think you are spot on. The great North Woods has acres and acres of \"taiga\", which is basically just timber (monoculture). It is practically devoid of life. I think diversity is key when it comes to habitat...or what I like to call \"edge cover\". I love rolling aspen benches with open parks in between, bordered by pockets of dark timber. Seems the more diverse the territory, the more elk per acre.

 

[Swede]

When I started reading Tick\'s comment, I began thinking along the lines of what Jeff said. Variety and edge,s where you combine good feed, cover and water, are critical for elk production. The better the habitat the greater the elk numbers. Sometimes I prefer marginal elk habitat for my tree stands. When I run into that situation where it is drier and more open, I have to focus on niches. The key then it to scout and find specific spots where elk come.

 

[Deertick]

How could you \"map\" those areas of diversity?

I think if you could, you\'d see patterns.

 

[Swede]

I have never mapped these areas, but they are easily visible on Google Earth. Take a look at 45* 23.747\' N, 117* 28.375\' W. It is an area in the Eagle Cap Wilderness where you can see a lot of edge. There are areas of heavy dense cover and open feeding areas all around. I have never hunted that country, but it is known for carrying a lot of elk.

 

[cnelk]

I know of a couple spots that are sterile of elk.
The terrain is perfect, no different than something just over the ridge that has elk, grass, mix of aspen & pines, water.
Im thinking that the wind or travel routes must not be in favor for the elk

 

[Swede]

I have hunted areas that once held a lot of elk, but now are not worth the time it takes to set up a tree stand. My son started calling one spot Old Faithful for the elk it produced for us. The only thing I can think of is he jinxed the whole area. There have been very few elk around there for a long time. The things that changed was just a little logging on the adjacent private land, and some nearby ranch land was seeded with more palatable forage. Apparently that was enough. On some other areas, in eastern Oregon, that once held elk, I have no idea what changed. All I know is that the elk are gone.

 

[Deertick]

I once spoke to a forest manager in Nebraska (yep, \"Nebraska\"; you heard that right) ... she pointed to a stand of a certain kind of pine tree and said that although many people look at that as a pretty, pastoral scene, it was all just one kind of tree. Without the diversity, she said, it was \"sterile\" in the sense that it did not hold any animals, and even new plants were out-competed by the mature trees. Nothing would change, she said, until it was logged, burned, or diseased.

Likewise, I remember a Pheasants Forever slide show years ago. It showed a field developing over 10 years. The first year, they just took a disc through it and tore up the ground. As you might suspect, the next year there were \"weeds\" everywhere. The weeds got slowly worse for a couple years, and the game population in that CRP field went up. Then, the grass out-competed all the weeds and by year 10, it was a big CRP field of Brome Grass.

The speaker said \"This is what every pheasant hunter dreams of ... and it\'s essentially sterile because there\'s no diversity.\"

So, do you think elk habitat is like that? Do fires, logging, and disease maybe attract animals ? (over time, of course.)

 

[Swede]

In a word, No. I don\'t subscribe to that when it comes to elk. Of coarse if the only vegetation out there was just pine or Douglas fir timber or if everything is the same age, she could be right. The argument she makes has been going on since the Europeans were the only active forest managers. Age of the trees including age diversity, amount of cover, adjacent forage terrain, etc. all play a part. Most forest managers in the west harvest and replant with conifers. It doesn\'t matter which conifer they plant back, they are not great forage. They will be eaten some when they are young. The diversity you get in many areas is over a large area. Often the only thing on a 40 acre plot of ground is one species like Doug-fir with a few natural regrowth trees. Still the elk are there.

 

[Deertick]

(To be fair, Swede, the story above was in Nebraska National Forest, where the whole thing has been hand-planted, so there is no species- or age- diversity. A really -- and truly -- artificial environment. The forestry analogue to a corn field.)

Put the question another way: If you have the choice, which would you suspect more to find elk in?

1. A mature conifer forest with a stream through it
2. A stream surrounded by a meadow, itself surrounded by conifers and aspen

Or does it matter? My hunch would be that diversity improves likelihood of seeing elk.

 

[Swede]

A large mature conifer forest will have very little feed and no diversity. Your second option is far superior. The west side of the Cascade Mountains in Oregon and Washington had huge tracts like what you described in alternative 1. Until logging was introduced and had progressed there were few elk in the region. After logging for about 30 or so years, the elk flourished. Now that the cutting on the National forests has been largely suspended for nearly 20 years, the elk and deer numbers have fallen way off. I think the hunter success in the Cascades of Oregon is now down to about 5% and cow harvest on National Forest land has been stopped for even bow hunters. Cutting and planting of single species was not the problem. The problem began when the Forest Service quit cutting and the early successional stage regrowth (forage) was gone.