Wyoming to Use GPS Collars to Help Hunters Target Specific Elk Population

The Wyoming Game and Fish Department (WGFD) is looking to get creative in its elk management tactics on the National Elk Refuge: the agency says it would like to use data from GPS collars to help hunters target a specific population of elk.

Essentially, the WGFD would like to reduce hunting pressure on elk herds that migrate between the National Elk Refuge and the high-country of Yellowstone National Park and the Teton Wilderness. Instead, the agency says that hunting pressure can be increased on “Snake River Bottom Elk,” which aren’t migratory or only migrate short distances.

The reason for this is simple: the Snake River Bottom elk population is trending upward, while the long-distance migrating elk population has been dwindling. The local elk have higher reproductive survival rates due to less predation and are also hard to get to during hunting seasons because they spend a lot of time on private land. The migratory elk, however, have to contend with wolves and mountain lions and can be hunted on public land along their migration routes.

Historically, the WGFD has granted hunters who haven’t filled their tags permission to participate in the fall hunt on the National Elk Refuge, which encompasses more than 24,700 acres of winter range for some 6,000 to 8,000 elk near Jackson, Wyoming. Last year, the agency did so but also held its first late-season limited-draw December cow/calf hunt, which was instituted to distribute the harvest pressure among elk population segments. The success of that effort was unclear due to unusually mild winter conditions in the area.

This season, the WGFD will again hold the December limited-draw hunt and may also add a January opportunity on the same tag. But there will be a key difference: the WGFD plans to use data from recently GPS-collared elk to open and close zones on the refuge depending on where the data indicates different elk population segments are located. The WGFD is still ironing out the details and may issue closures daily or every couple of days.

While GPS collars are regularly used for ungulate research and management decisions, using them to try to actively manage which populations are open to hunting on a daily basis is unprecedented, and it raises questions about whether this unusual management tactic will be used elsewhere in the future. The Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation declined MeatEater’s request for comment on the issue.

“[It’s going to be a] pretty unique and pretty intensive [hunt],” WGFD biologist Aly Courtemanch told Jackson Hole News & Guide. “I think we’re going to learn a lot this first year about opening and closing these zones, and if hunters like it or hate it.”