IDFG commish decides today on fewer moose, goat hunts

Declining hunter success rates and longer hunts are among reasons that Idaho Fish and Game is considering cutting back on the Panhandle moose harvest.

A proposal by Fish and Game, which is being considered today by commissioners, would close some controlled hunt areas in the Panhandle, reduce the number of hunts in others, but keep moose hunts in three units, including 4A, 7 and 9, the same.

“We don’t have many tags in those units to begin with,” Fish and Game Regional Biologist Laura Wolf said.

Over the past 30 years the number of controlled hunt tags for Panhandle moose jumped from fewer than 50 in 1990 to 325 in 2012, following a rapid increase in the Panhandle’s moose population.

Meanwhile hunters usually filled their controlled hunt tags, while fluctuating success rates usually stayed above 80 percent, edging over 90 percent in 2009.

Then things changed. Hunters who expected to be drawn for a tag that meant they were a shoo-in to harvest a moose, saw a hiccup.

In 2011 hunter success dropped below 80 percent, picked up the following year, then plunged below 70 percent in 2017. The rates still signaled a pretty good chance to get a moose, but it was no longer a given.

Wolf said theories exist for the decline — which is national, not just local, They range from climate-induced, to parasite- and- predator-based.

In North Idaho a series of changes have occurred including a strong predator — wolf and cougar — population, a series of warm winters that haven’t killed parasites that weaken animals, and an aging forest with fewer, young, logging-induced brush fields where moose feed.

“Habitat always has an impact with herbivores,” Wolf said.

Basically, populations of North Idaho’s shiras moose, a smaller subspecies of larger moose found elsewhere are being hit by a range of issues.

“To what extent, we don’t know,” Wolf said.

The idea is to no longer allow cow hunts in controlled hunt area 2, 3 and 5, and reduce antlered tags elsewhere while Fish and Game figures out what’s ailing its version of Alces alces.

In Unit 1 at the top of the Panhandle where IDFG offered 95 antlered moose tags last year, the number would be reduced by 46, according to the proposal. In Unit 2, the number of tags would drop from 30 to 20, tags in Unit 3 would decrease to 16, from 30 last year. Tag numbers would be cut in half in Unit 4 from 30 to 15, and 16 tags will be offered in Unit 5, down from 25. Unit 6 will have five fewer tags, for a total of 15.

The department is also proposing to reduce the number of mountain goat tags in the Panhandle.

The proposal would stop hunting in Unit 1 for the next two years and limit goat hunts in the St. Joe region to Unit 9.

It is based on a plan to keep herds in Unit 1 above 100 animals. Right now fewer than 50 goats live in two separate populations in the Selkirk and Cabinet mountains, numbering under 100 total mountain goats. A small population of goats live in Unit 7 near Avery — about 18 animals, according to IDFG, and they are vulnerable to hunting. Unit 9 has approximately 50 animals.

“We’re becoming increasingly conservative in our mountain goat harvest,” Wolf said. “We’re hoping to sustain these native herds.”