The Skagit Valley Herald (subscription required) covered a Fish and Wildlife meeting last week in Mount Vernon:
State and tribal wildlife managers have tentatively agreed on a limited elk hunt of the Nooksack herd for the upcoming fall — the first hunt in at least a decade.
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Since the late 1990s, biologists have spent whole weeks out in the field surveying the animals. They’ve conducted aerial counts of their numbers and even taken blood samples to determine the best genetic match to augment the herd with animals from another herd, said Chris Madsen, wildlife biologist for the Northwest Indian Fisheries Commission.
After years of study, eight tribes and the state have determined that numbers are healthy enough to allow a hunt.
Details are still being negotiated, but the main proposal is to allow 30 bulls to be hunted. The permits would be divided in half between the tribes and nontribal hunters.
For nontribal hunters, the permits for three different types of hunting — three for muzzleloader, six for modern firearm and three for archery — would be given out on a lottery system.
Two more of the state’s share of the elk hunt would be reserved for raffle and auction tags, and the agency is proposing that the final permit would be added to the modern firearm category.
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The Nooksack herd is one of 10 elk herds in the state. It peaked in the 1980s with 1,700 animals, but the animals have struggled with the encroachment of human activity, officials said, including development along the Skagit River and intensive logging.
State and tribal managers have twice reintroduced elk to the herd from a Mount St. Helens herd to augment the Nooksack numbers.
That has been successful enough to bring the herd’s numbers to between 600 and 700, and the bull-to-cow ratio is healthy enough to allow the 30 bulls to be hunted, officials said.
“This endeavor is a very momentous occasion, to be able to return back to hunting, even though it’s limited,” said Todd Wilbur, chairman of the Intertribal Hunting Committee of the Northwest Indian Fisheries Commission and a member of the Swinomish Tribe.
Wilbur credited the Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation for important restoration work the group has done in Skagit and Whatcom counties.
Chester Cayou, a hunter and Swinomish Tribal member, said the limited hunt in the Nooksack herd wouldn’t change too much this year for the tribal members doing ceremonial and subsistence hunting.
“This year, it’s probably going to be the same,” Cayou said. “People are going to be traveling south for the hunt.”
