Mulchatna Caribou

[VernAK]

The Mulchatna Caribou Herd peaked at 200K back in the 90s before going into a steep decline. The herd was estimated at 12K in 2017. ADFG recently did a little predator eradication in the calving area by killing 94 brown/grizzly bears, 5 black bears and 5 wolves.

That's a lot of grizzly bears but it indicates the abundance of predators in the bush.

Hopefully this will help to bring the herd back to a reasonable level.

 

[go4thegusto]

I was there during the heyday a couple of times. Fond memories and unbelievable hunts. Friends followed in our foorsteps the subsequent years. Had 90 degree weather. They sat in camp in their underwear and hardly hunted. all the lichen turned to powder and the food dried up.
In several trips we saw 3 wolves and 1 bear with hundreds of caribou. I think predators are a minor factor here. I believe climate change got them and likely will never come back to those levels.

 

[akcabin]

It's just too bad that the general public wasn't able to harvest those bears. And the department would have more funds. Would help our economy.

 

[william schmaltz]

It's just too bad that the general public wasn't able to harvest those bears. And the department would have more funds. Would help our economy.

The work was done as part of the IMP for the herd. As required in the IMP, a summary was presented to the BOG during the March meeting. The culling was done specifically on the calving grounds by state and federal aerial crews as a quick get in, get out operation and with as little disturbance to calving as possible. It would take a whole lot of camps, footsteps, hunting days, and negative disruption to calving for hunters to kill that many bears. AKFG finally does something about predators and people still find things to complain about.

The units are wide open for wolf and bear hunting and aerial permits are available for wolves. Have at it! Unfortunately, the 5 days I was able to make it out there in late March this year we sat around waiting on weather. But I'll be back a couple times next winter for some fun!

I wouldn't say it was climate change. The herd objective is 30-80K. They literally ate themselves to death and then got hammered by disease (hoof rot followed by brucellosis more recently). I believe there was a point where the limit was 5 a day and you could shoot same day airborne. There is also some really interesting literature about cyclical caribou populations. Some suggest the Mulchatna herd is on the high end of those swings, up to 40-60 years between it's peaks. Hopefully easing the predators will help speed it up, but the tundra takes decades to heal as well.

 

[diamond10x]

Someone correct me if I'm wrong, but wasn't a large part of the herd decline attributed to hoof rot?

Not knocking the predator control as that is a good thing for all animal species within the area. Glad to see them knock back the brownie numbers along with a few wolves.

Edit: I see it was said in the post above

 

[diamond10x]

It's just too bad that the general public wasn't able to harvest those bears. And the department would have more funds. Would help our economy.

I would venture to say that with 94 brown bears killed, there probably isn't half that amount of people that even hunt bears there annually.

 

[S-3 ranch]

I was there during the heyday a couple of times. Fond memories and unbelievable hunts. Friends followed in our foorsteps the subsequent years. Had 90 degree weather. They sat in camp in their underwear and hardly hunted. all the lichen turned to powder and the food dried up.
In several trips we saw 3 wolves and 1 bear with hundreds of caribou. I think predators are a minor factor here. I believe climate change got them and likely will never come back to those levels.

me and my uncle hunted north of naknek back in the day and probably saw 5000 + caribou a week , saw couple of coastal grizzlies also who were a major nuisance to our tent camp , I always think about going back but didn’t know the herd was destroyed by famine and plague, dang shame to hear that

 

[mtnbiker208]

I had some amazing caribou hunts back in the early 90's, going after the mulchatna herd.

 

[akcabin]

The work was done as part of the IMP for the herd. As required in the IMP, a summary was presented to the BOG during the March meeting. The culling was done specifically on the calving grounds by state and federal aerial crews as a quick get in, get out operation and with as little disturbance to calving as possible. It would take a whole lot of camps, footsteps, hunting days, and negative disruption to calving for hunters to kill that many bears. AKFG finally does something about predators and people still find things to complain about.

The units are wide open for wolf and bear hunting and aerial permits are available for wolves. Have at it! Unfortunately, the 5 days I was able to make it out there in late March this year we sat around waiting on weather. But I'll be back a couple times next winter for some fun!

I wouldn't say it was climate change. The herd objective is 30-80K. They literally ate themselves to death and then got hammered by disease (hoof rot followed by brucellosis more recently). I believe there was a point where the limit was 5 a day and you could shoot same day airborne. There is also some really interesting literature about cyclical caribou populations. Some suggest the Mulchatna herd is on the high end of those swings, up to 40-60 years between it's peaks. Hopefully easing the predators will help speed it up, but the tundra takes decades to heal as well.

I wasn't complaining about the removal of the bears. Keep going with wolves too.
I wrote that I believe that a public could harvest those bears. Maybe during hunting season..
And I support the culling

 

[VernAK]

The public would pick trophy bears for the most part. The culling needed to take all predators out of the critical calving area.

 

[william schmaltz]

94 brown bears eliminated in government predator control measure

Bears are on the minds of environmental and wildlife biologists after 94 brown bears were killed north of Dillingham between May 10 and June 4.

www.alaskasnewssource.com

In case anyone was wondering, the MSM in AK is also garbage and anti-hunting. I'd love to have an hour long conversation with the random guy they pulled from the university to talk about this and hammer him on some of the half-truths he's trying to sell. They mentioned sanctioned public wolf control since 2012 that has not been effective in improving caribou populations. There has been virtually no public participation in the intensive management of wolves in the area as a result of that IMP to date. It's proven to be too remote an area for people to participate. I'd also like to see his data on what he claims is enough illegal harvest to be a major contributing factor to the decline and inability to rebound.

 

[Steve O]

Man what great memories. I hope it comes back. That was my first big hunt, a drop camp thru Cabelas. Looking back I was clueless and had no idea it was on the decline. I had a lot of drive and desire back then. Gave me a lot of love for the Piper Super Cub. Did well and have kept it up since.

 

[Larry Bartlett]

brucellosis is high on the suspect list. You'll see caribou with lumps or swollen knee joints and sometimes spots on their lungs. Brucellosis affects pregnancy rates which leads to a sick and sterile population which dwindles for some years as fewer and fewer caribou survive.

If memory serves wasn't the Mulchatna Herd a transplant experiment from a bakers dozen Nelchina Herd animals? The state has options if the population doesn't naturally rebound. Hope they come back soon.

94 bears sounds like a lot but there are A LOT of bears per square mile in the country. At least they gave 'em a better chance to survive this year.

 

[AK_Skeeter]

Here is a link to the story
The herd saw a 96 percent decrease from a peak of 200,000 in 1997 to just 12,000 in 2017.

 

[VernAK]

There are other herds and areas that could benefit from the same.

 

[OXN939]

The work was done as part of the IMP for the herd. As required in the IMP, a summary was presented to the BOG during the March meeting. The culling was done specifically on the calving grounds by state and federal aerial crews as a quick get in, get out operation and with as little disturbance to calving as possible. It would take a whole lot of camps, footsteps, hunting days, and negative disruption to calving for hunters to kill that many bears. AKFG finally does something about predators and people still find things to complain about.

The units are wide open for wolf and bear hunting and aerial permits are available for wolves. Have at it! Unfortunately, the 5 days I was able to make it out there in late March this year we sat around waiting on weather. But I'll be back a couple times next winter for some fun!

I wouldn't say it was climate change. The herd objective is 30-80K. They literally ate themselves to death and then got hammered by disease (hoof rot followed by brucellosis more recently). I believe there was a point where the limit was 5 a day and you could shoot same day airborne. There is also some really interesting literature about cyclical caribou populations. Some suggest the Mulchatna herd is on the high end of those swings, up to 40-60 years between it's peaks. Hopefully easing the predators will help speed it up, but the tundra takes decades to heal as well.

Super informative thread. Thanks for posting, guys. I'll be flying up there this summer and this is a great read to brush up on the ecological history of the area.

 

[oenanthe]

94 brown bears eliminated in government predator control measure

Bears are on the minds of environmental and wildlife biologists after 94 brown bears were killed north of Dillingham between May 10 and June 4.

www.alaskasnewssource.com

In case anyone was wondering, the MSM in AK is also garbage and anti-hunting. I'd love to have an hour long conversation with the random guy they pulled from the university to talk about this and hammer him on some of the half-truths he's trying to sell. They mentioned sanctioned public wolf control since 2012 that has not been effective in improving caribou populations. There has been virtually no public participation in the intensive management of wolves in the area as a result of that IMP to date. It's proven to be too remote an area for people to participate. I'd also like to see his data on what he claims is enough illegal harvest to be a major contributing factor to the decline and inability to rebound.

Just to be clear, Rick Steiner is not affiliated with the University of Alaska as far as I know. Some years ago, he was more or less fired, or non-retained; not what most people would call "retired". He has a habit of weighing in and portraying himself as an expert on all sorts of issues, most of which he knows little about.

Edited to add: As far as illegal hunting, I believe the ADN article mentioned one single instance involving one animal.