WEDNESDAY DECEMBER 31, 2014
< It is winter, after all
Cold weather will ring in New Year | Page 5
Looking back at 2014 Our Year in Review continues | Page 3
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The hunt in 2014 FJ Hurtak looks back on the issues F.J. HURTAK
W
Erin Brannigan gets a high-speed ride from her dog Vanilla on the neighbourhood skating pond at River’s Crossing. (No dogs were hurt during the creation of this photograph). Julie Brannigan photo
ell, the 2014 hunting season is now in the books. Certainly in terms of success rates it all seemed to depend on who I talked to. Basically, a “feast or famine” type of year on elk, anyway. The butcher shops I chatted with told me that elk numbers harvested this year were pretty much the same as the year before. I found that a bit surprising considering the fact that there was no GOS (general open season) on cows and calf elk this year in most areas, with the exception being in the Elk Valley. One would then naturally assume that more bulls were harvested to maintain the previous year’s numbers. However, several of the outfitters in our region had one of their worst years on record and some die-hard elk hunters I know expressed a similar sentiment. Obviously, there were many successful hunters as well, so what it came down to in 2014 was location, location, location, as the real estate folks like to say. And, perhaps for a variety of different reasons elk may be changing their traditional habits, locales, and migra-
tory patterns as the years go by. Still on the subject of elk, I heard some very negative comments about the private ranch elk hunts in the trench, and the fact that some were charging people to access their property for the right to hunt. Some thought that might be illegal, and some also said that large numbers of elk were killed this year on quite a number of ranches. I checked with our local FLNR office to see if I could get some information to either verify or squelch the rumours. What they told me was this: They talked with most of the landowners after the hunt, and there were about five cow/calf elk killed on the four properties enrolled in the hunt. The land owners ARE legally able to charge hunters for access, as they can for any other hunt. The hunts were not LEH (limited entry hunt) but GOS hunts, but because of the small areas and short time frame, there were not a lot of hunters. The butcher shops in Cranbrook and Kimberley verified to me that only a few cow/ calves were brought in to be processed.
See HUNTING, Page 2
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