Catching Up

I posted some comments recently about the Division of Wildlife and their efforts to trap and put radio location collars on cow elk. I mentioned that the DOW wasn't seeing much success and that it would be potentially necessary to trap the animals from the air.

Well as it happens, that turned out to be the case. Time was growing short to get the project done, so the DOW hired a contractor, a company that specializes in this sort of activity. This company uses a helicopter and a net gun to capture the animals. The helicopter flys over the target, the gunner fires the net at the animal, then the helicopter lands and the "muggers" get out and place the collar.

It took a matter of hours to get collars on 17 cow elk using the helicopter, where it had previously taken two weeks to get 8 collars deployed using the hay-baited traps.

Attrition consisting of winter mortality and hunter success has had a small effect on the collaring effort and there are currently 52 collars deployed. Jamin Grigg, the DOW's local terrestrial biologist, hopes to start location flights in April. I'm very interested to see how that goes and I've put in a request to hitch a ride on a flight. I'll get another post up after I get off the plane.