New Elk Biologist Appointed-Special Elk License Gains House Approval

Jeremy Banefield, Elk Project Leader: Photo Courtesy PA Game Commission

The Pennsylvania Game Commission announced on May 17, 2013, in News Release 035-13, that Rochester, N.Y. native, Jeremy Banefield has been appointed to the position of elk project leader.   Although it does not specifically say so, he is was likely hired to fill the position formerly held by the late Jon DeBerti.

Below is the Release in its' entirety:

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:
May 17, 2013

Release #035-13

ELK BIOLOGIST BEGINS WORK WITH GAME COMMISSION 

Jeremy Banfield previously worked for Montana Fish, Wildlife & Parks

HARRISBURG -- The Pennsylvania Game Commission has hired a new wildlife biologist to serve as its elk project leader. Jeremy Banfield began his work for the commission this week.

A native of the Rochester, N.Y.-area, Banfield comes to the Game Commission after working most recently as a wildlife biologist with Montana Fish, Wildlife & Parks.

Banfield received his bachelor’s degree in fisheries and wildlife management from Michigan State University and received his master’s of science in ecology from the University of Alberta.

While working toward his master’s degree, Banfield’s studies focused on mountain lion foraging and prey selection, with an emphasis on impacts to elk populations.

Banfield has experience capturing and radio-tracking elk and other wildlife, investigating and resolving crop-damage issues, conducting wildlife surveys and research studies, running check stations and providing public presentations on his work.

Banfield also is a four-year veteran of the U.S. Coast Guard, where he worked as a machinery technician with and supervised a boat engineering and maintenance group.

Banfield, his wife and his 2-year-old son have taken up residence in DuBois. In his new role, Banfield said he wants to continue Pennsylvania’s legacy of effective elk management in the state’s northcentral region. “I look forward to meeting and talking with the residents of and visitors to the area comprising Pennsylvania’s elk range, and working to ensure the continued success of the state’s elk,” Banfield said.

To read other important News Releases visit the PGC Website and look for News Releases under Quick Clicks

Elk License Opportunities

According to information received from Paul Staniszewski, The House has unanimously passed House Bill 577.  This is legislation that if approved by the Senate and signed by the governor, would guarantee at least one resident of the Elk Management Area receives an opportunity to purchase an elk hunting license each year. The bill provides for a raffle open only to residents of the elk management area, with the prize being the opportunity to purchase one elk license. According to the text of the bill the drawing would be for an antlered elk license in even-numbered years and an antleress license in odd-numbered years.

Foggy Morning Bull

 This appears to be another "feel good" measure that is a sure fire win for the politicians, but in truth accomplishes little if anything.  It seems some, if not many residents of the elk range, do resent the fact that they put up with the tourists and hunters and endure property and crop damage from elk, yet seldom does an elk tag go to someone who has to put up with the problems.

While the bill may appear to rectify this to a certain extent, one needs only to consider that most people live in the more developed areas of the range, so it seems likely that most who would enter a raffle for one of these licenses, would be from one of the  towns or a more heavily developed areas in the elk range. Someone who actually owns the properties where the damage and conflicts occur would still have an extremely small chance of getting a license.

In reality this  appears to be nothing more than another aspect of the current trends of  more seasons, special seasons, longer seasons, higher bag limits, more days of the week to hunt, etc.  It is all about increased "Hunting Opportunity" and not about what is best for wildlife.

To read the full text of the bill and for other information Click Here.

Originally published at Pennsylvania Wildlife Photographer by Willard Hill.

Mid-May Brings Whitetail Deer and Wild Turkey Sightings

Mid-May Countryside: Canon40D-EF28-135mm f/3.5-5.6 IS USM

Mid-May, and most trees and shrubs are in full leaf.  It seems only a short time ago that the countryside was drab and brown. The whitetail deer are very ragged looking as the thick, brown,winter coats slowly give way to the thin, red hair of summer.  Within a few weeks these animals will be sleek, beautiful creatures once again.

Young Doe With Ragged Winter Coat: Canon 5D Mark III-Canon 24-105mm F4 IS L

The does are in the late stages of pregnancy and a few of the fawns have already been born, although I have not yet seen any.  The local herd does not usually have their fawns until the last few days of May, with the vast majority being born in early to mid- June.  The first fawn sightings are always a special thrill.

Adult Does: Canon 40D-Canon EF 17-40mm f/4L USM

While the does are getting ready to give birth, the turkeys are still engaged in mating activity, but one is not nearly so likely to see a mature gobbler strutting as they were a few weeks ago. Rather one may flush them while walking through the woodlands or see them as they feed in the meadows.

Young Gobblers a.k.a. "Jakes": Canon 5D Mark III- Canon 300mm f/2.8L IS USM

But sometimes one is lucky enough to see a mature gobbler in full courtship display.  Almost invariably there is a hen feeding nearby and the gobbler usually struts as long as she remains in the area.

Mature Gobbler Strutting: Panasonic GH3-LUMIX G- 100-300/F4.0-5.6 @ 300mm

While I usually use the 5D MK III and the 7D for still photography and the Panasonic GH3 for video, I find I the GH3 is also very good for still photography and is much better in that respect than its' predecessor the GH2. The GH3 has a 2X crop factor compared to a full frame sensor camera so the 100-300 is the equivalent of a 200-600mm zoom on the 5D MK III. It is not as tack sharp and has more distortion, etc., but l it is still a very usable lens.  The gobbler was quite a distance away and I cropped the image  significantly  to make this photo.  Unfortunately I did not have the 5D MK III with the 500mm lens set up on a tripod, as I would have liked to get some shots with it to have a good comparison of quality, but the bird did not tolerate me getting this rig into shooting position and left the meadow.  I also would have liked to had the 500mm on the Panasonic for this photo, but I selected the 100-300mm when I set up that evening as I was concentrating on capturing video and wanted a lens that was capable of covering a wide range of situations.  As it was I got a decent portrait of the gobbler and many very satisfactory video clips.

Originally published at Pennsylvania Wildlife Photographer by Willard Hill.

EHZs Realigned!-No Hunt Zone Eliminated?

At this point things have become somewhat more clear about the realignment of the Elk Hunt Zones (EHZ), which we discussed in some depth in the last post. In  this I used the rough sketched map below, which shows the way the EHZs have been aligned for the past several years. From this it seemed reasonable to assume that they would remain reasonably the same, with EHZ 11 and 12 added to the mix.  If one looks at the map, they simply started with Zone 1 in the northwest corner of the elk management area and then numbered the units in a clockwise circle, coming back to EHZ 10 meeting EHZ 1 in the east, with the No Hunt Zone being in about the center of the western half of the elk management area, which corresponds to the core of the traditional core elk range on Winslow Hill.

Approximate Map of Hunt Zones In Recent Years-2 More Zones Added This Year--Source: W. Hill-"The Truth About Pennsylvania's Elk Herd

When pondering the license allocations for 2013, there were some things that just didn't add up though unless the EHZs were changed substantially in some areas as zones 5&6 were in the eastern part of the elk range where there is little controversy about elk/vehicle collisions and other elk related problems at this time. The new allocations really slammed the pressure on the elk in these zones with  a total of 7 bull tags and 23 antlerless tags being issued for these two zones, but the elk/human conflict problem area was centered in the Medix Run--Weedville corridor.

Things became more clear when the April 27th issue of Endeavor News arrived.  Well known elk writer, Carol Mulvihill's article, "Spring brings new life to Pennsylvania elk population" featured a small map of the new hunt zones.  Paid subscribers to the online edition may read the article in its' entirety by clicking the link, while others must wait 3 weeks until it is available to the general public.

2013 Elk Hunt Zone Map: Created by W.Hill based on map published in Endeavor News

I created a map of the new zones by drawing in Photoshop.  I emphasize that this is a a very rough drawing and county lines, and EHZ lines are only very general in nature. Do not try to analyze it closely and try to figure the exact location of anything.  In fact the map used by Ms. Mulvihill as best as I can tell does not show  route 255, or 555, or Winslow Hill Road, which the maps in the Hunting and Trapping Digest never do either. This makes it impossible to tell from the maps where the boundaries are, but the digests do have detailed written descriptions of the boundaries, so we will likely have to wait for the 2013-14 Digest to be published to be sure of things.

From this map though, it becomes clear why zones 5&6 have the high allocations.  These EHZs now appear to be in the area from beyond Weedville to the west to possibly well past Benezette on the south side of RT 555 to the east.  In addition EHZ 10 has been moved from the western edge to the east.

It is very clear that the PGC and a very vocal portion of the public do not want elk in town, or have to deal with them on the highways.  While at present the majority of the complaints about elk seem to be centered around the Medix Run to Weedville  and the Rt 255 corridors, the photo below, taken in Benezett, shows the type of situation that many are unhappy about.

Large Herd In Benezette

There is no mention in Carol's article of a No Hunt Zone nor is there one on the map, but there is an  EHZ 7, which is a very small area on the map, in what seems to be the location of the present No Hunt Zone.  It has an allocation of 0 Bulls and 0 Antlerless so if this is the replacement for the No Hunt Zone it makes no difference at this point. Assuming the boundaries remain the same, it is simply playing with semantics, but it does make it much easier to begin shooting elk everywhere on Winslow Hill in the future.  If this move is accepted with little or no public reaction, it will be very easy to start allocating tags for the area. The acceptance of the term EHZ 7 for  No Hunt Zone, removes a psychological barrier to elk hunting in the center of elk tourism on Winslow Hill.

I emphasize at this point that I will not guarantee the accuracy of any of this, but as more information becomes available it seems that things are going to change and the change will likely be very significant. Assuming that EHZ 7 with its' 0 allocation is the replacement for the No Hunt Zone, it will not surprise me at all if the size of area  is drastically reduced.  The bottom line is that time will tell and it should become clear by the time the Hunting/Trapping Digest is published, but I would not even assume that this is a given, as there seems to have been much tighter control on the release of information pertaining to elk management and the elk hunt in the past few years.

Originally published at Pennsylvania Wildlife Photographer by Willard Hill.

Pennsylvania 2013 Elk License Allocations Announced

26 Bull Tags Issued For 2013 Season

In News Release 026-13  dated April 15, 2013, the Pennsylvania Game Commission announced the 2013-14 hunting license year, seasons and bag limits.  We will consider only the elk license allocations in today's post.  Click the above link to read the full details on the PGC Website.

Elk season will be from Nov. 4-9 in 201, with an extended season running from Nov. 11-16. This season is for both antlered and antlerless elk and is held in designated areas only for elk license holders who did not kill an elk during the regular season. A special Conservation Tag hunt will be held from Sept. 2-Nov. 9 for the successful bidder for the tag, which was auctioned this year by The Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation.

86 tags were issued for 2013, which includes 26 bull tags and 60 antlerless tags. The allocation does not include the Conservation Elk Tag.  Since it is almost certain that the successful bidder will kill a bull, this effectively means 27 bull tags and a total of 87 tags. This is a marked increase from 2012 when 19 Bull tags and 46 antlerless tags were  issued for a total of 65 licenses.Also, compare this with the 2011 total of 56 tags which included tags for 18 bulls and 38 cows  (Considering the Conservation Elk Tag this was in actuality 19 bull tags and a total of 57 licenses) and we notice a continuing upward trend in licenses issued, which corresponds to the steady increase in the  elk population.

Approximate Map of Hunt Zones In Recent Years-2 More Zones Added This Year--Source: W. Hill-"The Truth About Pennsylvania's Elk Herd

This year also saw the addition of two more hunt zones.  In recent years there have been 10  Elk Hunt Zones (EHZ) with EHZ 1 being open to anyone with an elk license.  This has also been the case with an area known as the open zone.  At this point it is unclear just what the boundaries of EHZs 11 and 12 are, but it is likely that it has something to do with the realignment of EHZs around Weedville where there are  ongoing problems with elk in town and elk/vehicle collisions on Routes 255 and 555. WCO Doty McDowell reports in the March 22, 2013 edition of the Courier Express that the area around Weedville is no longer in the corner of three separate EHZs, but is now mainly in one EHZ.  He goes on to note in the article that the allocation has been increased in the Weedville area.

Hunt Zone Realignment-Allocations Designed To Address Elk/Human Conflict Weedville Area

Elk Cross Quehanna Highway At Medix Run

Below is a chart, which lists the allocations for each EHZ in 2013 and 2012.  The Conservation tag is not taken into account in this chart. Areas with 0 allocations are considered closed to elk hunting this year.  As of yet I have no map of the revised EHZs so one can only speculate about the location of Zone 11 and 12.  It seems reasonably safe to assume that the other EHZs will be at least in the same general area as in the past, but this is by no means guaranteed and it is very possible that the EHZ boundaries may be changed to a certain extent even if they remain the same overall.

	2013			2012
Zone	Antlered	Antlerless		Antlered	Antlerless
2	3	10		3	12
3	2	6		1	2
4	3	2		1	1
5	4	11		0	0
6	3	12		0	0
7	0	0		4	10
8	1	1		2	7
9	1	4		4	10
10	3	5		4	4
11	1	1
12	5	8

Source: Prepared by W. Hill from the 2012-13 Hunting and Trapping Digest and PGC News Release 026-13.


Assuming that the zones remain much the same, it appears that the herd on Winslow Hill will receive about the same amount of hunting pressure as last year, with two less antlerless elk being targeted.  Zones 5&6, which are located on the eastern edge of the elk range were closed last year, but are open this year, with 15 tags issued for each, while EHZ 7 which is directly west of EHZ 6 is closed this year, but had 14 tags issued last year.  At this point it is not clear just what this all means and it will be interesting to see the 2013 EHZ map, which should make the situation more clear and aid in analyzing the impact these changes will have on elk related tourism.

Originally published at Pennsylvania Wildlife Photographer by Willard Hill.