AR-News: Cougar preys on relocated elk

[jim robertson]

Cougar preys on relocated elk
At least five killed in herd from Mount St. Helens

By M.L. LYKE
SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER REPORTER

SOUTH FORK OF THE NOOKSACK RIVER -- Broken ribs stick up from the carcass 
like hacked fingers. Predators have scattered the yellowed bones, and the 
elk's long spine twists into an unnatural U on the melting snow.

It's another cougar kill, one of at least five attacks on transplanted elk 
brought north from Mount St. Helens to augment the Nooksack herd that roams 
below Mount Baker.


   Gilbert W. Arias / P-I
  Wildlife biologist Chris Madsen, left, and volunteer Lenny Thompson 
inspect the remains of an elk killed by a cougar.
"We expect to lose some," says Chris Madsen, wildlife biologist for the 
Northwest Indian Fisheries Commission. "What's unexpected is to lose so many 
to cougars."

One hungry cat, possibly two, is feeding on the introduced elk -- cows, 
calves and yearlings. The newcomers are easy prey. Many arrive in weakened 
physical condition, coming from an overpopulated herd with too many animals 
and too little food.

"And they don't know the escape routes," says Madsen, as he rumbles along 
logging roads in a Jeep with volunteer Lenny Thompson, a Crown Pacific 
employee and lifetime member of the Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation.

Bumping past stumped clear-cuts and reforested timber, the two search for 
signs of elk: "rubs" on trees, tracks on snow, scat on the road that looks 
like a scatter of oversized raisins.

At high elevation, they stop and pull out radio signal equipment to try to 
find animals spread out over an estimated 492 square miles of river valleys, 
subalpine habitat, forest and meadows crisscrossing the borders of Skagit 
and Whatcom counties.

Most of the introduced elk wear a radio-transmitting collar keyed to a 
specific frequency. Wildlife managers tune to separate frequencies to check 
the status of an animal, and, using a compass, triangulate its position.

"Who's that?" asks Thompson, listening to the high beep of Madsen's 
receiver.



Madsen calls out a three-digit number. Thompson nods as if it's the name of 
a long-lost friend.

"Ah. We haven't heard from her for a while," he says.

The radio collars emit a signal, beeping about 60 times a minute.

If the collar is immobile for 12 hours, a mercury switch kicks in, and the 
beeps increase to 90-100 beats a minute.

That's not a sound Madsen and Thompson want to hear.

The rapid beeping can signal another cougar kill.

It's an easy feat for a large adult male cat to take down a 700-pound elk, 
they say. Typically, the cougar attacks by biting down on the larger 
animal's nose to stop its breathing, and grabbing its neck, leaving telltale 
claw marks.

Already, 10 of the 41 elk brought north in the fall are dead. Two of the 
animals died from predictable "capture stress." The cause of three deaths is 
unknown. So far, five are documented cougar kills. More could be added to 
that toll.

To control the predation, wildlife managers have issued special permits to 
hunters to go after the problem cougar -- or cougars -- with dogs and guns.

Although another cougar is likely to take over the territory, at least it 
will "buy the animals some time," Madsen says.

The elk relocation project is a cooperative effort of the Point Elliott 
Treaty Tribes and the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife. The 41 elk 
were rounded up at the St. Helens Wildlife Area Oct. 4 and 5 and trucked 
north, to be released near the south fork of the meandering, glacier-fed 
Nooksack River.

Fifty more elk are to be rounded up and trucked north next fall.

Annual cost of the project is $50,000, with tribes picking up the cost of 
population monitoring.

The Mount St. Helens elk are a close genetic match for the Nooksack herd -- 
a mix of the two Western Washington subspecies, the Roosevelt and Rocky 
Mountain elk.

The intent of the project is to bolster the dwindled Nooksack herd -- an 
estimated 300-400 animals, down from some 1,700 in the 1980s -- to numbers 
that can, once again, sustain limited hunting for tribal and non-tribal 
members.

It's not the first augmentation effort on the local herds. Elk were imported 
here as early as the 1910s, to increase herds overhunted by early settlers. 
Populations rebounded, but by the '40s, they were again decimated by hunters 
and poachers, and more elk were brought in from the Yakima area and Montana.

New generations of elk have faced not only hunting pressure, but also a loss 
of habitat and increased visibility as logging roads cut through their 
territory, making them more vulnerable to humans.

Hunting the Nooksack elk was again banned in the early '90s for non-tribal 
hunters, followed a few years later with a ban by Point Elliott Treaty 
Tribes: Muckleshoot, Nooksack, Sauk-Suiattle, Stillaguamish, Lummi, 
Suquamish, Swinomish, Tulalip and Upper Skagit.

Tribal leaders say the elk holds strong significance in traditional culture. 
The hides were used for making clothes, drums, shields. Hooves were made 
into rattles. The bone marrow was used for ceremonial paint, as well as for 
food.

"The decline of the herds has been devastating to the tribes," says 
Swinomish tribal member Todd Wilbur, chairman of the Intertribal Wildlife 
Committee of the Northwest Indian Fisheries Commission.

But he said tribes won't hunt again until they have scientific data that 
justify it.

"That's a commitment that all the Point Elliott tribes have agreed to."

Wildlife managers say that for the Nooksack herd to achieve healthy, 
harvestable levels, spring population counts will have to show at least 400 
bulls and 750 cows, with a ratio of 25 calves to every cow. Once elk hunting 
begins again, it will be limited to permits.

But that's still years away, Madsen says.

P-I reporter M.L. Lyke can be reached at 425-252-2215 or 
m.l.lyke at seattlepi.com




"I hold flesh-food to be unsuited to our species."
Mahatma Gandhi (1869-1948)

"Peace cannot be kept by force. It can only be achieved by understanding."
Albert Einstein

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