Ep. 40: Elk Biology with Brock McMillan, Part 1
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I want to see how we may be able to take this information and use it to our benefit during hunting season. See what makes sense, what relates, what doesn't, and what you're seeing out there. So Brock McMillan comes to us with a PhD in biology. He was a professor of ecology at Minnesota State University for nine years prior to joining the faculty as wildlife ecologist at BYU for the past 15 years.

In addition to all of his professional experience, he is also an archery elk hunter, which I'm most excited about because we get to jump in and talk about some of the things that I've observed and if they have a biological reasoning as well as what he's observed and maybe how they relate, how they're different. I also hope to dive into some of the research and see if it sheds a little light on why and how come those questions that I ask myself every September and I find myself trying to answer those every fall. So welcome to the show, Brock. Hi.

Thank you very much, Jason. Appreciate having you here. I know you guys are just like everywhere across the West. You're in the thick of a calving season. How's that going for you there in Utah? It's going great. We're right dead center. So yesterday we collared our middle calf, meaning that half of our elk that we have collared have given birth and half are still waiting to give birth. And so yesterday was the dead center day.

Gotcha. And, and that relates to timing, which we're definitely going to jump into here in a little bit, you know, timing of the rut and how that affects, you know, drop dates and, and whatnot. I know, you know, being from Washington, we're up a little bit further North. I know they're just kind of, I think there may be a little bit on the front end. And so we'll talk a little bit about that and how latitude may affect that may not affect it. In your opinion. Um, I'm going to actually going to go over to Eastern Washington and help capture calves, uh,

um, here next week and then interview their biologists. So, um, yeah, it's, it's that time of year. Um, really thankful to have you here. Um, you bet.

So like every podcast, we're going to start with some listener questions. And for this episode, I went to Is It September Yet? It's a Facebook group, a bunch of diehard Archie Elkhunters. They live for that month of September. So I'm excited to bring some of their questions to you here, Brock. And the first one that we got from Dan Scaless from the Is It September Yet? group

In your opinion, how does the moon phase affect the rut and the elk behavior? You know, there's a lot of built up. I'm going to, I'm going to elaborate on that. There's a lot of talk about, you know, taking your vacation around moon phases or taking it, you know, just on the backside of a full moon in your opinion, or not even your opinion. What does the science or research say about full moon and how it affects the rut? Jason, I would love to be able to answer that question. Um, I don't know. And that's a bad answer, but we, we have activity data.

Right now, we've actually GPS collared about 1,700 elk. And so we know movement behavior for all of those animals. And we're just analyzing right now the effect of time of day, season, moon phase. So I don't have a complete answer for that. But undoubtedly, it has some effect.

Yeah. I'm going to roll a little bit of my information, a little background on myself, Brock, you know, being an engineer, I'm very data driven. It's why I like talking to biologists because it's like the data is what the data is. You can read it and interpolate it however you want. But one year we set out a trail camera on a one month cycle. We set out on October 1st and we picked it up on September 1st. We then went through and categorized every picture we got of bulls.

time of day and what it related to the moon phase. Um, and all we saw was a slight shift in timing. Um, when the moon was out, we would see those animals coming out a little bit later if the moon wasn't. Um, and it didn't really seem to have an effect.

as much as you would think it was just a slight, a slight movement in time. Now that's, you know, unscientific. It's just me looking at one trail camera in one location, but we, we did see, you know, the moon, whether it relates to the brightness or their visibility, we did see things, you know, leave earlier and come out later, I guess. Um, you know, it waters and this was at a water source. So I, I guess we need to, to preface that. Um, as well as I also went back and looked at

you know, 15 or 20 of my bowl kills that I could remember days and times and whatnot. And one thing that was actually contrary to what you hear, you know, a lot of what said is, you know, following a full moon is the best time to hunt, you know, off of a full moon going into no moon is your best time to hunt. I'd actually killed the majority. I think 14 out of 20 of those bowls were leading up to a full moon within that week of the full moon. And so,

Not that it's good data, at least in my circumstances, it didn't seem to matter that much. Right, Jason. So, well, the literature is, the evidence that is in the literature suggests that photoperiod

is what drives the hormone cycles on both male and female elk. And so there can be an effective moon phase, and we hope to be able to determine if there is an effective moon phase, but the primary driver is photoperiod. So as days are shortening, testosterone levels are increasing in the bulls, and the follicle-stimulating hormone in the females is leading them into estrus.

Okay. Yeah. I, I, we're going to jump into that pretty heavy here in a little bit. So we'll, we'll talk about photo period, but yeah, I, this, this is really, it's not non-scientific, but I get asked a lot of times, if you only could take one week of vacation, when would you, you hunt? And it's, it's really what you're looking at the hunt, whether you want kind of that pre-redaction, whether you want to be in the middle of the bugling, whether you want to be on the post, but there's only so many days in September. So in my position where I can hunt a lot, I'm just hunting regardless of the moon phase. Um, but I, I don't,

and this is all opinion based. I don't think it matters as much as we, we like to think. Um, but, but it's real, you know, it's just based on my experience. Um, when they're running, they're running Jason. So I think that you're probably right there. Yeah. Okay. Our second question comes in from Thor Monday, uh, Thor Monday, excuse me. Also from, is it September yet during a colon, you have a bull all riled up and the next thing that bull rounds up his cows and leaves. Um,

Is there biology involved there? We're going to get deep into culling elk here in a little bit, but I wanted to throw this question up front. And I guess there may not be enough information. Winding, did you get too close or did that bull feel threatened? But can you explain that scenario out in the field and what you think may be going through that bull's head that was involved in the call-in and willing to communicate with you and then all of a sudden stops the communication? Yeah.

I don't have a biological explanation for that. I've had that exact same experience several times. And maybe, Jason, you're a better caller than I am. But my guess is you've had that situation as well. I think every bull has a different personality. And actually, there's been some personality work done lately. And that's true. They have different personalities. Some are much more likely to take risks than others. So I think that...

I don't know if you can get too close. If they don't smell you, my experience, and I don't know, Jason, you can be different. I go in hard until I get pretty close, and then I try to be quiet because elk are noisy. You know that in the woods. There's no reason to be timid getting close. Yeah. No, I'm in that same boat. I feel, number one, they don't smell you. Number two, obviously, you don't want to let them see you. It's secondary, but it's not as important as...

is being scented but i'm the same way as long as you're not going to get picked off getting as close as possible has always been my game plan if vegetation and terrain allow it um i'm gonna i'm gonna get real real tight because we all know and and maybe elaborate on that question um why he rounds his bull or why that bull rounds his cows up and leaves it's it's a it's that threat

of losing his cows. You know, these bulls are out there with the sole purpose to live and then recreate, you know, and they've got their for sure thing. If a bull starts to put pressure on them or you do get too close and his personality changes,

is such that he'd rather retain his cows and not risk fighting a new bull that showed up for him, of course, he's going to go the other way. And we talked about it on this podcast before, and I've talked about it in some of my calling strategies. This is why I sometimes start with different levels of threat. Like, would a cow call have necessarily forced him to leave right away? Or, you know, and don't get me wrong, I'm a heavy bugler, but, you know, it's sometimes tough to figure out why that bull just rounds up

and leaves at a certain point during the call-in um and we we may not know and it might change during the rut because you know bulls may lose 30 of their body mass they be maybe losing

uh, three, 300 pounds during the rut when they're not eating and they're fighting all the time. So early in the rut, the dominant bulls there, and he's saying, I'm willing to fight anybody. But 10 days later, he may say, I'm out of energy and I'm going to avoid any conflict that I can. Yeah. Yeah. It's a lot less energy expended to round his cows up and leave versus dealing with a, you know, another mature bull.

Okay. This one, and I apologize ahead of time, Brock, these were the four questions I pulled as user questions. So I didn't let you, you know, kind of review them. And I don't know if you'll have an answer or not, but does, so in the, in the West we deal in elk country, we deal with a lot of fire conditions, especially into September. And especially as of late, is there any indication that smoky air, poor air quality affects the rutting bowls at all? Or is it strictly based on photo period? I,

I don't think anybody studied that, but I can't imagine there's an effect. Okay. Yeah. I'm in that same boat aside from the effect it has on me trying to breathe and get around a little bit. Right. Yeah. Okay. And that was from Marshall Byron there on Is It September Yet? And then you may have some insight to this one. This is a little more technical question. It comes from Michael Cummings from Is It September Yet? Yeah.

What does the science say about shooting bulls versus cows for the health of the herd? And I'm going to elaborate on this question a little bit is sometimes you see areas where herds are really, uh,

I would say performing poorly in an area or they're, they're not meeting objectives. And then you get frustrated with the fish and wildlife commission or the, you know, whoever it may be that we're dang it. We're, we're given two bull tags out, but yet we still have 50 cow tags in the unit. Um, I'm going to, I'm going to ask that from a hunter's perspective. What does, what does, in your opinion, taking cows versus bulls, uh,

And how does that negatively or adversely affect it or does it, in your opinion? So I hope this is something we get into because I think this is a really complex question. If you're a rancher, a cattle rancher, you don't want any bulls in your herd because every bull you put in the herd is a lack of food for another cow to produce a calf. And I think it's generally the same for elk.

You don't need very many bulls in the herd to service all the cows and to service them during their estrus. I hear all the time, well, if you don't have enough, they go into a second estrus. We have no evidence of that whatsoever. Zero. And so the more bulls that you remove from the herd, the more productive the herd's going to be. Now, there's less bulls to see when you're hunting if you do that, but the herd as a whole will be more productive.

The other kicker is, Jason, and this is a big one for us in Utah, is as a population ages, say, for example, you are not removing cows and the average age of the cow increases, the likelihood that that cow becomes pregnant goes down with age. And so as a herd ages as a whole, the productivity of that herd goes down regardless of how many are on the landscape.

So there's a whole bunch of factors. If we have too many mouths on the landscape, production is going to go down because nutrition drives whether a cow goes into estrus or not. If she's not fat enough, she doesn't even go into estrus. And so pregnancy rates will be low. Same thing. If the herd's getting old, pregnancy rate will be low and the herd just won't be as productive as it was during the growth phase for that herd. Does that make sense? Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. That makes a lot of sense. And we're going to jump into herd dynamics and a little bit bold to cow ratio and some of that. And I've got, I've got a lot more questions we can expand on this. Like, well, what's a good management tool to make sure you're only taking those, those older cows or how do you determine that? So I've got some questions from a hunter's perspective, like, and a game manager's perspective, like how do you even manage that for the optimal herd health? But we'll, we'll jump into that. So no, I appreciate you answering that question. And I'll kind of wrap up our,

our listener questions today, Brock. And once again, if you have questions of your own, you'd like me or my guests, um, the experts to, to try to answer, feel free to email us at CTD at Phelps game calls.com or reach out to us on social, um, and, and give us your questions and we'll try to include them here. So can't think the guys over at the, is it September yet? Um, page enough for, for filling us up with some questions and the ones I didn't get to were for sure going to get to in my conversation. So,

Next up, we're going to jump into my discussion here, Brock. Excellent. So, like I mentioned earlier, I'm excited when I get to talk to biologists, researchers, scientists, people that have hard data to look at. And, you know, I would say I go out there as a

a guy that just learned by trial and error. This works, this doesn't work. Maybe I have an opinion why or why it doesn't, but there's no data, right? Besides it happening multiple times or not. And so very excited to talk to you today, Brock, and kind of run some scenarios, questions, issues, whatever it may be by you to see if, you know, what the, what the science supports. I know we had a great conversation a week ago and I got excited about some of the things you

You had talked about cows coming into estrus, why adjacent units are doing good and bad. So really excited to jump in here.

So I'm going to, I'm going to break this all the way down to the foundation. And I don't feel that any of this is below elk hunters, but let's start with the elk rut in general. Um, I want to build this whole conversation off that foundation. Can you just go into the generalities of the elk rut as far as timing, um, you know, bulls going to cows, cows going to bulls, like as far as the bulls run the herd for that amount of time, or do the lead cows run the, run the herd? Like, just give us a, uh,

a five minute snapshot of the elk rut and what's taking place. So I, I think the elk elk rut is dictate. I'm sorry, is dictated by partrition is get dictated by birth. So what's driving when the rut is, is, is,

that that calf has maximum nutrition when it has maximum need. And so the female, the maximum energetic requirement is just prior to weaning that calf. So the female gives birth like right now, the 1st of June, and for the next three or four or sometimes six or seven months, she's nursing that young, although she starts to wean in two to three months.

So she needs maximum food on the ground in two, three months from right now to help that calf grow as much as possible. And so that dictates when the calf is born. And that's the evolutionary force is going to drive that date. And then gestation is 240 to 250 days. And so the rut has to happen 240 to 250 days before that date.

For everything to be optimal. And so I think that's what's driving when the rut happens. So if today, which it is the peak of partrition on the unit we're studying right now, we're the peak partrition, then like the 24th of September should have been the peak of rut this last year.

Do you feel that those 240 days, is that variable amongst units or is it kind of pre-programmed, like you said, into that evolutionary data? Or is it 250 days for a certain unit and 230 days for a different unit? That's a great question. All we know about the gestation is from captive elk.

And what we know in captive elk is gestation can vary from about 240 to 262 days. I don't think there's near that much variation. Those are the extremes. I think that in general, it varies from 245 to 250 days.

And, and like humans, it's not everybody is exactly nine months. Some come a couple of days shorter, some go a couple of days longer. In my case, a week longer and I was 11 pounds, that kind of thing. Yeah. Yeah. So, so let me,

I don't want to misinterpret your numbers, but you're saying that it's a fairly tight range. Because if you're saying only 22 days is the extreme ranges of that envelope, does that mean all these cows are being bred within a very, very short time window? Or, I mean, because we've all been out there, right? And so we've heard bulls beagling, you know, end of August all the way to the beginning of October. Larger herds seem to take longer days.

Are those all, is that red activity happening outside of the breeding or, or is it, are those like anomalies or outliers? Why that bull stays, you know, kind of active in those cows or entering estrus, those kind of off times outside of that 22 day window, you kind of just mentioned. So, so, so the 22 day window is the gestation. So that doesn't, that doesn't dictate how long the rut is because it,

We don't have hard data yet, but what we think is happening is a cow has to reach a certain condition level before she can go into estrus. And so healthy, healthy fat cows come into estrus earlier than poor condition cows. If the poor condition cow comes into estrus at all. And so we had our first birth Jason nine days ago now, and we're already in the middle. But my guess is that,

Parturition or birthing will tell all the way towards the end of June. And so, yeah, absolutely. The rut may start nine days before September 24th, start going really good. So we're sitting at about September 15th for these units here. And the majority of all the animals are going to be bred by October 5th.

But there are some that were poor condition that are still trying to get to sufficient condition to go into estrus. And so it may lag, the rut may lag all the way into the middle or even to the end of October for those few straggler cows that are still trying to get enough fat on their bones. So I'm just trying to reduce this data to areas I've hunted. So if you're in, let's say a

a unit that doesn't have necessarily the best wintering ground. And so those cows go back into spring and summer in poor condition. Is that where you may see that rut going longer just because it's taking them a little bit more or their health isn't as good? And so you may see that rut go longer in those more mountainous units versus if you're in a low-lying unit that has easy winters, you may see them all come in, like you said,

middle of September and hit all at the same time where you get, you know, a high percentage of your cows all at once versus, you know, different levels or a spread out array of health. So that's a great question. And I don't know a hundred percent the answer. If I draw on deer data so that they're a little different than elk, summer habitat is way more important than winter habitat. And I think it's true for elk too, unless they're feeding on somebody's alfalfa field or haystack.

And so what they come out of winter in condition is dictated by the condition they go into winter. And so what they have to eat in the summer dictates more about estrus than how mild the winters are where they're living.

Gotcha. So they can overcome that hard winter through their feed and health through late spring, summer, and then that will get them back to kicking their estrus off at the right time. Right. Because their condition in September is dictating what is happening. And so they have the ability to overcome anything that happened in winter. Every elk on the landscape in an area that has real winters,

basically has burnt through all of their energy reserves by the end of winter. And they're running on fumes, especially true for deer, but elk too. They're running on fumes by April. Gotcha. Okay.

Yeah, I think that that's a great, great conversation. And I'm sure there's little, little side pieces we could pick out there or there for a long time. Um, so during that rut, in your opinion, you know, at least in my area up in the mountains, um, you know, the bulls like to hang out together through July, most of August, and then towards the end of August, middle of August, we can start to see these bulls split up and the cows have hung out by themselves with maybe some immature bulls. Um, and you're, uh,

is there info or data that supports the bulls going to the cows or the cows going to the bulls you know let's say you're running trail cameras and you've got all these pictures of bulls and they disappear um should i go to the nearest location of cows or what what's going on there during the rut so so we we have about seven years of data on on this question we haven't looked at it specifically the way you're asking here but it appears that when when bulls lose the velvet

they start heading for traditional rutting grounds. And the cows do too. And so they have areas that they meet and it may be very different than where they've spent the whole summer, either of them, if that makes sense. Yeah, I would say just in my...

My observation, the cows seem to be closer to that rutting area because it always seems like my bulls will up and leave, you know, go a mile in a direction. But I know that there was a majority of cows over there. And that's one of the reasons I always like when I'm scouting, not necessarily look for elk, not necessarily look for sign at the time, but like where the rubs that the rubs were like a great indicator of where they're running and where they're going to spend that September. But

Um, yeah, if they both move, I could see that, but I've always just assumed that the bulls are going to leave their location to go find the cows. But you're saying that there is some, some research or indication that those cows also may leave their area and go to like a neutral spot or a meetup spot. So, so the, the cow calf nursing grounds are often very similar to the rutting grounds. And so you're already going to find cows there often, but cows will move to those grounds as well.

Gotcha. That lines up real well with what I've seen. And a lot of people get frustrated with only having cows on their cameras. And I'm like, well, unless you're looking for specific bulls, just hang out there because I think those bulls will eventually show in that area. They may just be hanging out in a secluded tight basin or whatnot or non-visible. They may be three, four, ten miles away. We have some that move –

I think we have one bull that I, that I looked at in particular that went 17 miles from like the 20th of August to the 10th of September. Yeah.

Yeah, that's amazing. It does you no good to scout there, and that's why we always recommend scouting as absolutely close to your season as possible because things are going to change. In addition to pressure on the landscape, elk are just going to move regardless. Absolutely. In Utah, our archery season is like August 15th to September 17th, and the bulls that are there,

You know as well as me, you scout them all summer and you go, I'm going to start opening day this canyon. And that's about the time they start losing velvet. And they may be there one or two days and then every one of them disappears from that canyon you've scouted all summer. Yeah.

Yep. We've got some good, good intel from guys that pay a lot of attention, like in Nevada, you know, they've got such an early season where he saw 50 plus mature bulls within a tight little pocket. And they're there so early that he said, as you see the rut, like wind up by time it was over, there were like two of those 50 bulls were left there or even in adjacent canyons. They just disappeared.

they all, that was their spot to, to, you know, sit in the velvet and eat the best green grass or whatever they had going. And then instantly the rut starts and they all filtered out of there besides a couple of bulls. And so, you know, we got some good data that those things just literally disappear. There's, there's really good biological reasons for that. And it's been studied quite a bit. So cows and bulls have very different selective pressures. Cows,

are generally selecting habitat where they can feed their offspring, but also where their offspring are protected from predators. And bulls don't really worry about predators near as much. So they always go to the absolute best habitat that they can find to put on mass. And so because of those two different selective pressures, they're often separated in the summer.

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I'm going to ask one more question here on just stuff that I want to know about the elk rut and what I've perceived. And the question is just...

Which elk runs the herd? Is it the bull, the herd bull, or is it that lead cow? Or is it dual duty? Because in my opinion, I've seen like dual duty, but I'm going to listen to your answer and then maybe throw in some of my experience there. That's a great question. And I don't know the answer. I do know that when they're not together, it's that lead cow, of course. In fact, we have cows, their social structure is pretty fluid, meaning that

The groups that are living together, you may have these 15 together today and four of them pick up and move over and join this group. And that's what I mean by fluid. They change who they're with regularly.

And we have elk that migrate in the winter and where they migrate to is dictated by the lead cow. So I have, we have cows we've been monitoring for five years and they go to a different place every single winter and it's based on who they're with. And so I, the adult female is very, or the matriarch, whoever the dominant female in the group is the one that drives a lot of it.

I'm not sure about males. I think it's got to be a combination because of that matriarchal lineage is so strong. Yeah.

Yeah, and that's what I've seen is it seems like as long as everything is going the way the bull wants it to and he's not being pestered by satellite cows or he's not being pressured by people, hunters, predators, the lead cow kind of leads the herd back into their bedding area. She kind of leads them out to feed. She's the one that gets up when it's time to leave bed and come back out to feed. And all of those, what I would call just...

you know, the daily decisions that that herd is making and what they're going through with. Now, where I see the bull, there have been times where, you know, he rounds his cows up and pushes them. You know, he gets forceful. He uses, you know, horns, uses his stature, whatever he needs to. And he will at times force that herd to go where he wants them to, whether it's to escape danger, get them away from other bulls, whatever it may be. I've also seen like the bull push the cows off so that he can come back and

and either check out a bull or confront a bull that's pestering him. So I feel like it's a dual relationship, but I think if we weren't to interject and if we weren't to spook the bull or predators weren't, the lead cow is going to do the majority of the leading in that herd, even during the rut until that bull feels pestered enough or there's a reason enough he wants to move those cows he physically does.

So, so I think that's, that's generally true. That's supported by, I mean, nobody's really looked at who's driving it that I know of anyway, nobody's really looked at who's driving their movement or their behavior during the rut, but during the rest of the year, it's the lead cow. And I just, I find it hard to think that that's how it goes for 47 months of the year. And then five months of the year, a bull comes in and takes over. Ultimately,

Ultimately, the cow chooses to be with the bull or to let the bull there. I mean, she's the final choice whether she's going to mate with that bull or not. He may be the dominant bull and not let any other bulls, but she only has to take one step if she doesn't want to mate with him. Yeah.

No, just some general questions about the elk rut, kind of what I've thought. And so now we're going to run into rut timing, which is I botched the gestational period there in the last time. Now we're really talking about rut timing and when things start to get going. And a lot of it may be perceived. There may be people thinking the rut's cranking at the end of August when we all know that's not happening, but they're hearing beagles. So it is perceived that the rut's going at that time. So in my opinion...

It's based on photo period, but I'm going to let you kind of jump in. And you kind of already answered this, I guess, above when we're talking about getting that calf on the ground at the optimal time and then going backwards based on gestation from that. But in your opinion, is that kicked off by...

Photo period, which we, you know, I think is a general consensus, which lets them know that they're 250 days ahead. Like that's their clock or what other factors affect kicking off the rut. So how it works, Jason, is the evolutionary selective pressure. If the female gives birth at the right time of year, she's more likely to have an offspring survive.

And if a female gives birth at the wrong time of year, she's less likely. And so if the successful female continues to be successful, pretty soon that timing becomes the main timing because she's had all the calves and the ones that other times haven't. That's what drives that parturition timing. And that's what drives the timing of the rut. So it is, but, but,

They don't say, oh, I need to give birth on June 1st, so I'm going to count back 250 days. Of course, they don't do that. So they've tied it to what's called a zeitgeber. That's Z-E-I-T-G-E-B-E-R, which is a German word that means timekeeper. And all animals, you and I have an internal clock.

uh, you're younger than me, but I wake up every morning at like five minutes after six. And that's an internal clock in me. And that internal clock in animal, in mammals is regulated in general. The primary thing that's regulated by his photo period. Um, the, the zeitgeber or the timekeeper or the clock setter is photo period. Um,

It can be resources. It can be a few other things, but the primary thing in mammals is photoperiod. And so that is what the brain is using to tell a bull elk when his testosterone levels should increase. And when his testosterone levels increase, that's when his antlers harden and he sheds the velvet. And that's when he starts into his testes enlarge.

And he starts searching for potential mates. And so, yeah, it absolutely can happen at the end of August that he starts searching for potential mates when there's none available. Gotcha. And then to wind it back a little bit, we talked about cows and their health affecting that. Are the cows, they know by based on.

I'm not going to even try to re-say the word you did that sounded like lightsaber. Let's go with lightsaber. There you go. The Elks lightsaber. So if you were to look at that, they know they need to, based on that, which is a lot to do with photo period and the light that they're getting,

They know they need to try to be, you know, 240 to 250 days ahead, but then their health also affects that. So it's a little bit of a balance. Like they know they need to come in now, but it may take 5, 10, 15, 20 days based on them getting their health to a certain point. So they're just constantly trying to – their body is telling them to, but they just can't? Is that how that works? Yeah.

Yes, yes and no. So they don't ever make a conscious decision. Evolution has dictated that when days are this long, that's the optimal time to go into estrus. And so, or actually when nights are this long, uninterrupted darkness is what really regulates it. So when nights are this long, that's what the optimal time to go into estrus. But

If a female carried a calf the whole summer or she nursed a calf the whole summer, she's still trying to recover. And so she may be delayed if she was successful in raising a calf. Same thing if you're living in a marginal habitat and you had a really severe winter and you had a calf, you're going to be delayed a little bit. If you're older, you're always in poorer condition. You may be delayed a little bit. So

Evolution has dictated the optimal, but there's a lot of other forces pushing them off the optimal. Gotcha. That makes a lot of sense there. In your opinion, and I know we see it a lot more drastic in the deer population, but is the rut timing...

You know, we've already talked about it being based on photo period, which does that coordinate directly with latitude or does latitude itself have anything to do with that aside from the days being shorter or longer than a different latitude? Sure. We don't have a strong analysis on the effect of latitude for elk, although...

We've just developed a mathematical model where we can look at timing of parturition based on movement patterns. And so we can look at that. But definitely in deer, there is a strong latitudinal effect. So you would expect it to be similar in elk as well. And that is, as you go north, the rut becomes earlier, which is a little counterintuitive maybe for some people.

Yeah. And, and I mean, it's very noticeable in deer, you know, I was down in Mexico, Coos deer hunting this year in the end of January and the Coos deer were, you know, going crazy down there still, you know, or like the Arizona over the counter archery tag, you know, mule deer rutting end of December through the middle of January and our ruts, you know, two months gone. But it doesn't, it seems like I can go down to New Mexico and elk hunt and the ruts the same

same, you know, about the same spot as they are up here in Washington, maybe a few days either way. But I was, I've always been curious if there's anything that supports, um, that latitude difference like it does on the deer side. So, yeah, I don't know, have me back next year and I should be able to answer that question more completely. Even in Utah from Northern part of the state to the Southern part of the state, there's a full two weeks difference in deer. Yep.

uh with the northern part of the state peak parturition is about june 5th for deer and in the southern part of the state it's like june 23rd june 22nd so you back me from that and so that i mean that's that's a huge difference latitudinal i would expect there's some of that in elk um but i don't know for sure yeah

To wrap up rut timing, are there any other factors that correlate high enough that's worth talking about? Or is it really just based on that photo period and the length of the night? No, I think the one factor that we haven't touched on maybe enough, we have a pretty popular unit in Utah. It's called the book cliffs. It's a limited entry deer unit and it's a limited entry elk unit.

And it's what I would call summer range limited habitat. And in effect, it's marginal habitat. There's just not a lot of summer range for elk. And in dry years, elk are in relatively poor condition. And only in the best of best years are they in good condition. But the cool thing, if the herd in general is in poor condition, the rut will be much more spread out.

And if the herd is in really good condition, the rut will be much more punctuated. Does that make sense? Yeah. Yeah. So the, the, the elk don't have to spread out to find resources and find food and, you know, and spread out the cows. They're, they're, they're all able to kind of be in that prime position.

But I think it's because they're all in good enough condition to come into estrus at the optimal date. Whereas in poor condition, they're just straggling in getting to that critical condition they need to go into estrus. And so let me give you an example. One year we had 40 births that we were monitoring and all 40 of those births occurred, I believe, between May 25th and like June 29th.

And the next year, birth started on May 15th and they went all the way into the middle of July. They were spread out over two full months and they were in really bad condition the previous rut season. And so I just think that it can be spread out a lot more in herds that are old or in herds that are living in marginal habitat. Yeah.

That makes sense. Not that I would necessarily apply for units around that idea, but it's great to know that it does exist. And, you know, if you had an October season that went into some of these marginal units, you may still hit the rut. You know, I wouldn't say in the peak, but more in the height versus if you were in a unit that has great summer habitat, the rut is over earlier. And now that we're talking about this really interesting.

Nobody ever believes me when I talk about Southwest Washington. We set our muzzleloader season on the first Saturday of October. Our rut is you can literally slam the door on our rut for the most part by the end of September, 1st of October. And it's because we are in a rainforest, right? These elk don't migrate.

They're local herds. They've got all the food in the world with clear cuts and all the greenage around here. But yet I firmly believe our rut is dang near over on October 1st versus you go up in the mountains. Or if I go, I'm like, man, the rut goes so much longer out of state, you know, and these other units are up in the mountains. And so that really correlates with what I've seen on the ground versus what I've seen in my backyard. That's interesting. That's, I mean, I,

I deer hunt usually the third week of October and the rut is regularly still going at least stragglers in our mountains of Utah. Yep. Yep.

Yeah. I mean, I called a bull, my, my wife's first bull I called in on October 29th, um, called it in and, and, but it was in the mountains, you know, central mountain, the East slope of, of the Cascade mountains. And it just different unit, different area, bigger herds, um, a migratory unit that has to live on feed grounds, you know, in the winter versus our elk here have always just been done. So that that's,

that makes sense on maybe why that correlates. So I can't remember if we're going to talk about it, but are we going to talk about pregnancy rates, which would drive how strong the rut is?

yeah we were going to talk a little bit i know i have a note coming on on perceived strength of the rut and then the cows coming into estrus you know sometimes only 50 percent of them so we'll get into that um yeah yeah in just a little bit but the matter of fact the only question i have in between those two i wanted to ask about um you know one of the perceived things is we're out there hunting we've had a couple good high pressure days in a row ruts really going good it seems to be getting better and better and then you get a rain squall come in and uh

It shuts the rut down or that's what's perceived. The activity seems to be different, whether it's hunters get lazier, they're not working as hard. In your opinion, or when I say your opinion, is there data that supports or research that supports weather and how it affects the rut? So not that I know of.

Again, that's a question that we're asking right now. Absolutely, weather is going to affect activity patterns. I would say in my hunting experience, it's exactly the opposite. The worse the weather, the more it's going. And so, yeah, if the weather, maybe because it's so warm here and the elk are just overheated during the rut, September's super hot still, maybe

They, if it's a hot day by early morning, they're back in the dark timber on the North slopes and they're bedded down. But if it starts snowing, they're active all day long. Yeah, that makes sense. Um, I was told by an old timer that, that I used to hunt with or hung around and got some tips and tricks from, he believed that the rain washes away all the scent that's on the ground. Um, I don't know if I believe that or not, but it was one of those things where it's like, you kind of scratch your head. Is that

true you know if cows are you know close or they're peeing you know all over the landscape does that get that bull fired up and so he's bugling more as he travels around or not i i don't know i've i just kind of put that in there as far as the weather affecting the rut and potentially supports what i've seen um but but it sounds like you've seen the opposite so it's it's not necessarily uh maybe a factor so yeah definitely olfactory is the way that elk communicate and tell each other that

I'm approaching estrus or I'm in estrus or I just ovulated. That's how they're communicating with each other. So anything that changes the amount of olfactory communication on the landscape is going to change behavior. Having said that, they have a pretty keen sense of smell. And once the rut's going, I'm not sure that they're using...

scent marking as much as before the rut. I think that they've started to gather up their animals and they're checking their animals regularly. They have a fleming behavior like bison where they, it's called a lip curl, where they can open up a whole bunch of

olfactory receptors in their nose and they can tell whether that female is, is approaching estrus or not, but they check them individually by then. Yep. Yep. Yeah. Where you see that bull get up and go nudge every cow out of her bed, check her scent, check her, and then move on to the next one. Yep. So that's part one of our podcast here with Brock McMillan on elk. Stay tuned for part two coming at you next time on cutting the distance.

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