With the 2011-12 hunt for cougars starting and the black bear season going statewide on the first of September, there are a few new twists for Washington hunters.
A new online quiz is now available to hunters so they can test their ability to accurately and consistently differentiate between two native bear species.
This skill is critical in northwestern U.S. where one species of bruin is relatively plentiful and fair game, while the other is scarce and protected by both state and federal law.
Cougar hunters, whose regular season started Thursday, Sept. 1, also have some new stretched hunt options adopted a month ago by the state fish and wildlife commission that will replace legislatively mandated cougar hunting opportunities that the 2011 Legislature did not renew.
TELLING BEARS APART
Passing it is mandatory in Montana before hunters can buy a black bear license, however the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife's new bear identification test, recently launched on line, will start as a voluntary, self-administered examination of hunters' field ID prowess.
It tests for the ability to tell the difference between black bears and grizzly bears with the expressed intent of preventing inadvertent hunter killing of the latter rare and endangered great bear species.
The pictorial quiz has a series of both close-up and more distant photos of grizzlies and black bears and challenges the viewer to use a series of distinctive characteristics to determine which bruin species is depicted.
It seeks to get hunters to discard old ineffective ID saws based on body size and pelage color in favor of a more reliable assessment that uses a combination of physical features including facial conformation, presence or absence of a shoulder hump, claw length and visibility together with ear size/space and ear-to-head relationship.
At the conclusion of the exam, hunters are asked to review their results, because incorrect answers on the quiz translate to bad shooting decisions in the field, which besides imposing grave consequences on the grizzly bear can have significant financial and legal impacts for the errant shooter.
The bottom line is that there is zero margin for error on the part of the hunting public.
According to state fish and wildlife department data, about 29,000 hunters annually buy a Washington bear hunting license and each year they take about 1,300 black bears from a population of 25,000 animals.
On the other hand, grizzly bears are exceedingly far less abundant in Washington with a known remnant population in the Selkirk Mountains (north of Spokane) estimated to number no more than 50 animals.
In the North Cascades Grizzly Bear Recovery Zone north of Interstate 90 it's thought that there are no more than 12 grizzlies remaining and some of those are trans-boundary bears from Canada.
The launch of this ID and testing initiative was timed to the first of September start-up of black bear season in Northeast and North Central Washington management zones where bruin hunters are most apt to run across the scarce griz.
WDFW's bear identification program is a collaboration between state wildlife managers, the Interagency Committee Grizzly Bear and the private conservation group BeBearAware.com.
Besides the 16-question true/false style test, WDFW's bruin Web page also has links to videos with information about visiting bear habitats including topics such as bear-proof backcountry food storage systems.
As mentioned, Montana is one of several other states with hunter bear ID tests. Here are the Web portals:
- Washington: wdfw.wa.gov/hunting/bear_cougar/bear/index.html
- Montana: fwp.mt.gov/education/hunter/bearID/
- Wyoming: gf.state.wy.us/bearexam/default.aspx
COUGAR HUNTS CHANGE
Without a nod from the 2011 Legislature to continue this fall, the experimental dog-aided hunt for cougars in six Eastern Washington counties has ended.
However, to meet management targets for cougar numbers and modulate the harvest of females in those jurisdictions, the state fish and wildlife commission, in a Friday, Aug. 19 conference call, added more days to the any weapon portion of fall cougar hunts.
Hunters using any legal weapon may now hunt from Saturday, Oct. 15, to Friday, Dec. 31, in Chelan, Okanogan, Okanogan-Ferry, Stevens-Pend Oreille and Klickitat zones.
In addition, a permit hunt was established for the snow months (Jan. 1 to March 31) that will involve the issuance of 20-40 permits for cougar hunting again without the aid of dogs.
Though the big cats are easier to track and more susceptible to lure calls, the kill rate in this hunt is expected to be exceedingly low.
Besides the increased opportunity with in the so-called boot seasons, the commission also adopted several other changes in cougar harvest management including the criteria for triggering cougar removal hunts (with the aid of dogs) and the removal rate (cougars taken relative to the size of the complaint area).
Hunting for cougars started Thursday, Sept. 1, but only for those participants using archery tackle (bow and arrow). The season switches to muzzle-loading firearms users Friday, Sept. 23. Modern firearms toters begin their installment Saturday, Oct. 15.
The annual bag limit is one cougar, but hunters are barred from killing adults in the company of spotted kittens or to kill or possess the kittens.
The commission also made changes to the rule that setting the threshold numbers of cougar encounters and complaints in a localized area that are required to initiate special cougar removal hunts.
Complaints are categorized both by general sightings as well as a special category of closer encounters that include livestock and pet depredation.
MORE HUNTS THIS MONTH
Besides hunts for bear, mountain lion and birds, bow and arrow hunting adherents also take to the field in September for their early archery opportunities for deer and elk.
There is also one unique option this month for modern firearms enthusiasts, and pursuers of lesser game species now may have a go at their quarry, too.
- Early archery deer: opened Thursday, Sept. 1, in selected game management units around the state and will continue with varying closure dates through the end of the month. Quarry include black-tailed deer in Western Washington and mule and white-tailed deer east of the Cascades.
Generally, though not always, bow hunters may kill either sex of deer, however nowadays, there are significant restrictions on the male side of the target list that mandate the taking of older bucks (with minimum of three antler points) only.
Bow hunters must select for their weapon at the time they get their tag and may only hunt with archery tackle during dedicated archery seasons.
- Early archery elk: opened Tuesday, Sept. 6, in selected game management units on both sides of the Cascades for initial elk opportunities that will run through Sunday, Sept. 18. Their quarry includes both sexes of elk with similar age-focused minimum antler point restrictions for some hunts either on young so-called 'spike' bulls or older, mature branch-antlered bulls.
Besides selecting for an archery-endorsed elk tag, elk-hunting archers must further opt for either a Western Washington or Eastern Washington regionally delineated tag that will restrict them to hunting one side or the other of the Cascade Mountains throughout the fall of 2011.
- High buck hunt: opens Thursday, Sept. 15, in specific higher elevation venues including the Alpine Lakes, Glacier Peak, Pasayten and Henry Jackson Wilderness Areas as well as the Lake Chelan National Recreation Area and selected wilderness areas on the Olympic Peninsula.
This hunt is born out of the understanding that when regular timed general seasons open later in the fall these lofty locales will be snowed in and the deer gone, descended to lower elevation wintering grounds.
Styled in the tradition of true mountain hunting, the nature of the high buck hunt necessitates that participants either backpack or livestock pack their gear into and operate out of a remote base camp.
Any lawful hunting weapon may be used, but participant hunters must have a modern firearm deer tag for this unique opportunity.
Only bucks are fair game and they must be adorned with antler sets that have at least three points to be legal to shoot.
This season closes Sunday, Sept. 25.
- Small game hunts: opened Thursday, Sept. 1, targeting lesser game-classified animals such as several species of the rabbit family as well as bobcats, lowland foxes and raccoon.
Hunters must have a Washington 2011-12 small game hunting license and except for bobcats are not required to have any other documentation or perform any other pre- or post- hunt procedure.
Except for rabbits, there are no daily limits. But of snowshoe hares and cottontail rabbits, hunters may kill up to five per day, aggregate or all one species.
Successful bobcat hunters are required to present all hides at an end-of-the-season appointment for 'sealing' by a fish and wildlife officer.
Foxes may not be hunted locally in the north Puget Sound basin game management units 407 and 410 nor may they be hunted inside the boundaries of the Mount Baker-Snoqualmie, Okanogan, Wenatchee or Gifford Pinchot national forests, that to protect the high-elevation dwelling native Cascade red fox about which little known.
Doug Huddle, the Bellingham Herald's outdoors correspondent, since 1983, has written a weekly hunting and fishing column that appears Fridays. Read and comment on his blog at blogs.bellinghamherald.com/outdoors.
