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When Franz Ingelfinger took over as Kalispell area biologist for the Montana Department of Fish, Wildlife and Parks four years ago, he kept hearing the same suggestions from hunters and outfitters. Find out what’s happening in the South Fork Flathead River drainage.<\/p>\n
“They were interested in my schooling and what was going on there,” Ingelfinger said. “They had a lot of concerns about the decline in game animal populations, particularly elk, within the South Fork, where harvest and hunting numbers were at their lowest in over 100 years.” <\/p>\n
In 2024, Ingelfinger led a study to uncover the reasons behind the mysterious decline. His team has captured and collared 25 elk and collected more than 60,000 data points about the animals’ movements. Although the research is not yet complete, Ingelfinger shared some preliminary insights from the project at the April 14 Wilderness Speaker Series hosted by the Bob Marshall Conservation Foundation, Wild Montana, the Northwest Montana Lookout Association, and Flathead Valley Community College. <\/p>\n
The elk population in the South Fork Flathead River watershed peaked around 1937, when an estimated 3,700 ungulates roamed the valley floor. By the 1950s, the moose population had declined to about 2,200 individuals, but researchers have since considered it the largest sustainable moose population. Nearly 300 animals have been discovered during recent aerial surveys. <\/p>\n
Changes in the way the Montana Department of Fish, Wildlife and Parks conducts elk surveys and estimates population likely explain some of the difference in elk numbers, but Ingelfinger said changes in the environment are also playing a role. A big change has occurred regarding wildfires. Approximately 30 percent of the South Fork Flathead River drainage has burned in the past 25 years. <\/p>\n
Fires benefit elk by promoting the growth of grasses and trees that the ungulates eat, but large burns can also destroy the bark that elk rely on for shelter when wintering in the mountains. <\/p>\n
“The winters are long, the snow is deep, and one of the biggest characteristics of their winters is that they rely on some sort of subsistence diet and canopy cover or tree cover to provide what’s called thermal cover and snow shielding,” Ingelfinger said. “Basically, it’s warmer under the trees and the snow isn’t as deep.” <\/p>\n
Another major change is in predator populations, which experienced a boom in the late 20th century following national policy changes. <\/p>\n
“I’ll share a secret: Wolves kill things. Lions kill things. Bears kill things, and we kill things,” Ingelfinger said. “As a biologist, I’m not interested in individuals. What I’m most interested in is what the population effects are.” <\/p>\n
Not all predators are equal, he says. For example, if a wolf were to kill a sick, old moose, it would have little effect on the population as a whole because the animal would likely die quickly anyway. <\/p>\n
Not all predators are the same. Early data from a similar study in the Noxon area suggests that mountain lions are responsible for most of the elk deaths in the area. <\/p>\n
Although there isn’t enough predation data on the South Fork Flathead River to know if the same pattern holds, Ingelfinger concluded that one in every 25 collared elk was killed by a mountain lion. Another necked moose died last April, but researchers were unable to determine the cause. <\/p>\n
This puts Ingelfinger’s study population at a 92% survival rate, which is on par with the state average. Pregnancy rates were also in line with the state average, with 22 of the 23 surviving collared cows tested pregnant. More good news came when Ingelfinger conducted an aerial survey a few weeks ago that estimated there were about 27 calves per 100 cows. Most researchers believe that a 25:100 calf to cow ratio is the minimum for a sustainable elk herd. <\/p>\n
Ingelfinger said he hopes to collar five to 10 more elk in the future. All radio collars are programmed to continue transmitting data points every four hours for an additional two to three years. At that point, the collar will automatically detach and fall off the animal’s neck. <\/p>\n
Even with all this data, Ingelfinger said it will be difficult to pinpoint a definitive cause of the elk population decline. <\/p>\n
“You don’t necessarily get the answers,” he says. \u201cWhat this gives us is the ability to have an informed debate and to have an informed management.\u201d <\/p>\n
Reporter Haley Smalley can be reached at 406-758-4433 or [email\u00a0protected]. If you value local journalism, please pledge your support at dailyinterlake.com\/support.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n #State #biologists #seek #answers #South #Fork #elk #population #rut<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" When Franz Ingelfinger took over as Kalispell area biologist for the Montana Department of Fish, Wildlife and Parks four years ago, he kept hearing the same suggestions from hunters and outfitters. Find out what’s happening in the South Fork Flathead River drainage. “They were interested in my schooling and what was going on there,” Ingelfinger … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":668,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[1417,708,1415,1409,1408,1140,1407,1418,1414,1405,1411,1354,1317,1419,1416,666,1406,393,1410,1412,1413],"class_list":["post-667","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-answers","tag-bear","tag-biologists","tag-bob-marshall-conservation-foundation","tag-bob-marshall-wilderness","tag-elk","tag-flathead-river","tag-fork","tag-hunting","tag-montana","tag-northwest-montana-lookout-association-and-flathead-valley-community-college","tag-population","tag-puma","tag-rut","tag-seek","tag-south","tag-south-fork-flathead-river","tag-state","tag-wild-montana","tag-wilderness-speaker-series","tag-wolf"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/hyokal.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/667","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/hyokal.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/hyokal.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hyokal.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hyokal.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=667"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/hyokal.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/667\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hyokal.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/668"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/hyokal.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=667"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hyokal.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=667"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hyokal.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=667"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}