The Blackfoot Seasonal Update

It has been a longer than usual winter for most of the Blackfoot Watershed and as mud season transitions us from winter to spring we'll take the opportunity to review the past year.

Before I dive into the recap of the past season I wanted to take a moment to remind folks that with spring around the corner please remember that bears will soon be returning to the valleys. Now is the time to start bringing the dog food and bird feeders inside, securing your garbage, and generally being mindful of bear attractants.

We had a very successful big game hunting season this past fall! Based on harvest numbers collected from the Bonner Check Station, elk and deer harvest in the Blackfoot was the highest since 2008. We had 98 elk pass through the check station in 2017, which was up from the 58 recorded during the 2016 hunting season.

White-tailed deer harvest was the highest since 2008 continuing an upward trend since 2013. What remains to be seen is how the elk and deer will respond to the difficult winter conditions and if it will affect their abundance or calf and fawn recruitment.

The increase in elk harvest was likely the result of early snow that forced some of the elk to move down to the valleys earlier than usual. However, some of the harvest was likely a response to elk moving away from the burned areas in the northern portion of the Blackfoot Watershed. The Rice Ridge, Park and Alice Creek fires burned through the summer ranges of the Blackfoot-Clearwater elk herd and several of the Lincoln area herds. Hunters that frequented those areas reported seeing more bulls in lower elevations during the archery season and that continued during the general hunting season.

It is difficult to know for sure how the elk will respond to the burns over the next several years but based on a substantial amount of research done on the topic, we can probably expect the results to be mixed. Areas where the fire burned at low or mixed-severity should see a quick recovery from the vegetation and an improvement in forage quality. Those areas that burned hotter may take longer to recover depending whether the site is dry or moist. Over the long term, research supports the idea that fires should benefit elk and mule deer habitat.

Staying with the topic of habitat, FWP has been busy working on two forest management projects on the Blackfoot Clearwater Wildlife Management Area (WMA) and another on the Nevada Lake WMA. The three forest management projects are at different stages of completion with active timber harvest taking place on the north side of the Blackfoot Clearwater WMA. That project is focused on removing younger Douglas-fir and ponderosa pine across approximately 370 acres with the objective of opening the understory to improve forage abundance and forest health and vigor.

A second project on the Blackfoot Clearwater WMA will start this summer or fall and likely conclude next winter. The focus of the second project is on removing conifers that have expanded out onto the westside grassland and will cover more than 400 acres. This project represents the first stage of a larger effort to restore approximately 3,000 acres of a critically important component of the Blackfoot Clearwater WMA's winter range.

The forest management project on the Nevada Lake WMA is in the final planning phase with the Environmental Assessment due to go out for public comment within the next few weeks. The Nevada Lake WMA project has similar objectives to the Blackfoot Clearwater project with a focus on restoring forest conditions. Overstocked Douglas-fir has shaded out important understory grasses and shrubs that elk and deer rely on during the winter. We anticipate this project to start this winter and continue throughout next summer.