Historic first: PA elk season extended

Posted on: December 7, 2016 | Bob Frye | Comments

PA elk 7Pennsylvania Game Commission photo
Hunters and visitors congregate at the elk check station earlier this fall.

This is a Pennsylvania first.

The state’s elk season has come and gone. It ended on Nov. 5.

For the first time since the hunt returned in 2001, though, it’s been extended. Fifteen elk hunters who ended this year’s season empty handed will get another crack at things.

The Pennsylvania Game Commission will allow those people – 14 of whom hold a cow tag and one a bull tag – to hunt from Jan. 7-14 in elk hunt zones 1 and 5, said Doty McDowell, the information and education supervisor in the commission’s northcentral region office.

Elk-human conflicts are the reason.

Hunt zone 5 surrounds Weedville in Elk County. It’s also home to a lot of complaints about elk damaging private property, raiding agricultural fields and the like, said commission spokesman Travis Lau.

“We didn’t get the number of elk taken out of that zone that we wanted, so the decision was made to extend the season,” he said.

The commission has been trying to reduce the elk population in zone 5 for the last four years. Results have been mixed at best, however.

In 2015, for example, only 11 of 20 licensed elk hunters took an animal. The commission labeled that level of success “poor.”

This fall was even worse, rating as “exceptionally poor.” Only nine of 20 hunters filled a tag.

The commission blamed that on several things, not the least of which was access. Some landowners in that area don’t allow hunting, according to the commission executive order explaining the hunt extension. This past season at least, elk did not routinely venture onto the properties hunters were on either, it seems.

Elk hunt zone 1, meanwhile, is on the northern fringe of the elk range. It’s been hoped that harvesting some animals there will reduce potential future conflicts, so the 15 hunters who didn’t get an elk in zone 5 will be able to try there, too, should they choose.

According to the executive order, opening the two areas will perhaps improve the commission’s “ability to meet its elk management goals within these areas, increase its rapport with landowners in these areas increase rapport with previously unsuccessful” hunters.

Extending seasons is not totally unheard of.

Years ago, when the statewide antlerless deer season was a three-day affair, it was occasionally extended to a Saturday because of bad weather.

Then as now, the commission’s executive director has the authority to offer additional hunting if underharvest is an issue.

Bob Frye is the everybodyadventures.com editor. Reach him at 412-838-5148 or bfrye@535mediallc.com. See other stories, blogs, videos and more at everybodyadventures.com.

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