Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: Probably like you in high school, right?
That old guy like me. You know, it's how it is.
[00:00:07] Speaker B: The opposite of what you were in.
[00:00:09] Speaker A: High school talked about the range of the management area.
Is it ever going to expand or is it expanding?
[00:00:14] Speaker B: Or when I say that, like high quality bulls. Three hundred eighty s and above in every single zone.
For me personally, I'm going to pick.
[00:00:23] Speaker A: Hey, welcome to Call of the outdoors, the podcast of the Pennsylvania Game Commission. Got a really cool episode. Obviously, we're sitting here inside today, but we're taking the show on the road. We're headed up to elk country to sit down with Jeremy Banfield, the elk biologist for the game commission here. And a lot of cool things going on. And we're going to talk about all of that stuff here in a minute. But before we get to that, we have eleven more days till July 14 to apply for our elk drawing. Whether you want to try one season or all three, you have till July 14. So let's get on the road. Let's head up to elk country and sit down with Jeremy Banfield.
For Pennsylvania hunters and conservationists, our roots run deep. The episodes we bring to you on the Pennsylvania Game Commission's podcast, Call of the Outdoors, will take a deep dive into exposing the incredible work being done by agency staff and partners, including statewide habitat projects, the science behind wildlife management, and what drives agency decisions. The Pennsylvania Game Commission's mission is twofold, to manage and protect wildlife and their habitats for not only current, but future generations, and to promote hunting and trapping in the Keystone state.
Jeremy, thanks for having us to elk country. And, you know, every time we, we leave Harrisburg and come up here, it's like you just get this breath of fresh air and why don't you tell folks, you know, that it's been a while since we've done a podcast a little bit about yourself and what's happening up here in elk country.
[00:01:53] Speaker B: Yeah. So again, my name is Jeremy Banfield. I'm the elk biologist at the game commission. I always tell people that I probably have the best job in the game commission. Maybe our bear biologist is a close second, but I'll just say that I have the best one for right now.
[00:02:06] Speaker A: Elk can't eat you, though.
[00:02:07] Speaker B: Yeah. Yeah, that's true.
[00:02:09] Speaker A: Well, bears really don't either.
[00:02:10] Speaker B: Been here for just over eleven years now and moved out here from, from Montana. I'm not originally from Montana. I'm originally from western New York. So this is a little bit of a coming home.
[00:02:21] Speaker A: I wouldn't tell anybody closer to, closer.
[00:02:23] Speaker B: To where I'm originally from, so. But yeah, yeah, I thoroughly enjoy my job.
[00:02:28] Speaker A: Is that why you call soda pop? Is that the New Yorker?
[00:02:31] Speaker B: No, I think growing up it was soda, but then my wife's from the state of Indiana, and somewhere along the way, like, I started calling it pop, and now it just, it just makes more sense to.
[00:02:40] Speaker A: I got you call it that. You do have an incredible job, and you're doing an incredible job. I mean, our elk herd in Pennsylvania is pretty amazing, and, uh, we're all jealous. But you live up here in elk country where we're sitting today.
[00:02:52] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:02:52] Speaker A: I mean, it doesn't get any prettier than this.
[00:02:54] Speaker B: No, better. I gotta be careful saying this. I know I'm gonna make somebody upset, but I feel like there's no prettier spot in Pennsylvania. Like, I live in one of the nicest parts of Pennsylvania.
[00:03:03] Speaker A: Absolutely. So we're gonna hit a lot of questions. I mean, we get them all the time. You get them and, you know, just try to cover all the bases we can and we won't talk. We probably won't cover everything we need to cover, but we're going to go for it. But, you know, how many elk, or do you estimate today? Estimate today?
[00:03:18] Speaker B: You want the long answer or the short answer?
[00:03:20] Speaker A: Both.
[00:03:21] Speaker B: Okay.
So that's always the big question is, like, how many elk do we have? How many elk are out there? The short answer is like 1400.
[00:03:29] Speaker A: That's conservative though, right?
[00:03:31] Speaker B: Yeah, that's an estimate.
[00:03:32] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:03:33] Speaker B: Every year we do an aerial survey. So we use a fixed wing plane that has an infrared camera hanging from the belly of it, and they do an overall count. And then we use our radio collars to estimate the proportion that we're missing.
And that without going too heavy into it, it ends up being a marker capture type framework. Marker capture statistical analysis. And so you can't ever say that.
[00:03:59] Speaker A: Word again on this podcast.
What is that?
[00:04:05] Speaker B: It's a. It's.
[00:04:06] Speaker A: You count them?
[00:04:07] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, so we get, we get an overall count, we get a proportion of the radial cars that they see, and we use that proportion to correct the overall count to produce an estimate. This past year, it was 1497. And then confidence intervals ranged from about, like, 1650 to about 1200. So somewhere between that, that range, 1650 and 1200, is the true population. So conservative estimate is going to be about 1400.
[00:04:32] Speaker A: Okay, that's awesome. And, you know, it's, and it. What's, what's crazy to me is like, we do surveys and just talk to folks all across the state. And there's so many people that live in the commonwealth that don't realize that we have an elk herd in, in this part of the world and. And 1400 animals is a bunch.
[00:04:49] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah.
[00:04:49] Speaker A: And, you know, when you look at the elk range where we're sitting now, you know, talk about that elk range and what's so important and why it's what it is and where it's staying.
[00:04:58] Speaker B: Yeah. So when you say elk range, I might change that word to elk management area. That's our official designation for it's all right. Everybody says elk range is the slang. So elk management area is basically 2g. Right. If we're talking wildlife management unit, it's going to be the north central part of the state. Interstate 80 is the boundary to the south and then us six is the boundary to the north. And PA 287 is going to be east. And us, excuse me, 219 is going to be the very western boundary. So if you draw that box, that's our elk management area. Greater than 70% public land. Trying to keep the animals on public ground where we can, one, do the habitat management for them and then two, just keep them out of trouble.
[00:05:39] Speaker A: When you say trouble, I mean, obviously, you know, when you get in the more populated areas, that's where trouble comes from. And let's talk about that because we hear it all the time. Why can't we have elk in Perry county where I live? And I mean, yeah, we can have them, but it would be a problem.
[00:05:51] Speaker B: We definitely hear that a lot. I mean, constantly, like, why don't we move the elk here? Why don't we have elk there? Um, the main thing is, I always try and paraphrase this with every species has some form of human wildlife conflict, right? Like squirrels get into your bird feeder and make you upset. Um, everything for elk is just amplified, right? They're big, they're huge. They have high nutritional demands. It's one thing to have five little whitetails in your cornfield, something totally different to have five elk in your cornfield. So they're hard on agriculture. Right. Um, and that's, that's traditionally our number one conflict is them getting into farm fields and things like that. And they do cause a lot of damage. So again, when we keep them on public land, you know, low, low ag density, that's one of the goals of the management overall.
[00:06:34] Speaker A: So when you say that, I mean, it's true. You see an elk. And I remember the first elk that I personally ever saw, I was hunting, you know, in Arizona. Arizona? No, not yet. And I remember when it was in its bed and we crawled in there, it was bugle, and it stood up and I was looking underneath of it because I've never seen anything that big, you know, and it's like your eyes didn't go up there. So when you see something looks like the size of a truck, it's pretty amazing. But when you talk about that, talk about their size, you know, what is an average weight of a cow and an average weight of a bull?
[00:07:05] Speaker B: Yeah. So three times ish of that of a whitetail. So roughly three times as big. Cow weight is anywhere between 506 hundred. Bull weight is anywhere between 700, 5850.
[00:07:15] Speaker A: That's a lot of animal. It is a ton of animal.
[00:07:17] Speaker B: It is.
[00:07:18] Speaker A: You know, when we. We talk about elk and let's just, you know, Cliff notes version of the history of elk here in Pennsylvania.
[00:07:24] Speaker B: Yeah. Like reintroduction.
[00:07:26] Speaker A: Sure.
[00:07:26] Speaker B: Okay, so we had elk once upon a time, right? Pre colonial, 1716. Hundreds, 18 hundreds, even. There were elk here somewhere in the end of the 18th century. There's two different accounts. One is 1867, one is 1877. Two different guys claim that they killed the last elk in Pennsylvania. I'm not sure how you could ever claim that you definitively killed the last one, but both of them did it. And so I just say that somewhere in the late 18 hundreds, you know, elk are gone from Pa. Stayed that way until 1913. 1913, game commission brought in 50 animals from Yellowstone National park and released those. We also pulled 22 animals from a private reserve in Monroe county. And then a few years later, in 1915, we released another 95. And then 1920, 419. 26. There was another six and four total is 177. Between 1913 and 1926. Every animal that we have today is descendants of those.
[00:08:20] Speaker A: Wow. How many times in your life have you said that?
[00:08:22] Speaker B: A lot.
[00:08:24] Speaker A: So when you talk about habitat, and we're sitting in habitat right now, I mean, we are sitting in the elk range, and the habitat that has gone on up here for years, you know, is, you know, having the elk is one thing, but making a place for them to live and talk about, you know, things that happen up here in the elk range. What do you call it? Elk management area.
[00:08:43] Speaker B: Elk range is fine. Let's just stick with elk range.
I think the biggest thing that we need to talk about with elk is that they are primarily grazers, right. They're going to seek out grassland type environments, meadows, whatever you want to call it. Right. Big mature forest, big woods, does not make great elk habitat. Looks pretty. Yeah, absolutely does. So everything you see in the foreground behind us is elk habitat. Everything you see way out, all the trees in the way back there is not great elk habitat. So it's got to be.
And I should say that it's good for other things, right? Like, I'm not saying it's bad habitat for wildlife in general. It's just we've always got to have that balance between species a versus species b. An elk need open canopy, herbaceous, grassland type environment. That's the main thing that we really struggle with in Pennsylvania. Pennsylvania wants to be trees, right? And if we don't do some form of successional setback, fire, mechanical mowing, something like that, then eventually it turns to shrubs, shrubs turns to young forest, young forest turns to old forest, and then it's not being used by elk anymore.
[00:09:47] Speaker A: Even when you look at back in the days when elk were here in the 18 hundreds, there was no trees here.
[00:09:51] Speaker B: Right?
I mean, we had bison. There's evidence that we had bison here. I mean, bison is a completely plain species that requires vast, vast grasslands.
[00:10:01] Speaker A: So, yeah, so the habitat that we're doing now, like on the game lands, we're sitting on, you know, just give us a couple examples of how we continually even driving in here, continually improving that habitat or, you know, creating more and better and the succession of that habitat for the oak rain.
[00:10:19] Speaker B: Yeah. So this year, a good example would be we prescribe fire. We have two kind of windows that we can do, prescribed fire, and one early season spring, before everything kind of greens up, and then late season, fall before winter sets in. You know, those are really the times that we can burn fields effectively. So this area alone that we're sitting in was burned this past spring. I know it doesn't look like it, but it was burned this past spring, and it's already grown back to where it is. So that's. That's the primary way that we do it. Second one would be just mowing. Right? Like, you can brush hog a field and keep that successional setback from happening.
[00:10:51] Speaker A: Now, they obviously, you know, as grazers, but, you know, they have to have other food as well, right? I mean, what else, what else would elk eat?
[00:10:58] Speaker B: So when I say grazing, I'm typically talking anything that's not woody, right? Forbs, grasses, things like that. That said, elk still will browse, right? We think of whitetails. We think of them as primarily browsers. Elk are going to be primarily grazers, but they will indeed browse. So browse is the second main one. Seasonally. Acorns provide a good food source. Again, it's seasonal. So it's pretty much just that September October timeframe.
And those would be the big three right there. So grasses browse and then acorns.
[00:11:28] Speaker A: I can't imagine how many acorns an elk can eat in one bite.
[00:11:31] Speaker B: Everything eats acorns. So bears and whitetails, everything that's after acorns.
[00:11:34] Speaker A: I mean, we'd eat acorns too, probably, if we had to, I'm sure.
So you look at the, we talked about the range of the management area.
Is it ever going to expand or is it expanding or.
[00:11:44] Speaker B: So current elk management area is not fully occupied. Only we've got about elk in maybe the western third, western half of it.
[00:11:54] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:11:54] Speaker B: So there's a lot of room to grow east and northeast. And that is painted into our management plan of like, trying to move distribution of elk into the northeastern portion of the elk management area. Right now. No, I'll say right now. You know, we want to keep the EMA, the elk management area as it is, but just expand usage and habitat within that.
[00:12:13] Speaker A: And, you know, we have lots of great partners out there. I mean, as always, let's, let's talk a little bit about what's going on with Rocky Mountain Elk foundation and, you know, our partnership with Kiko. We're getting ready for the Elk Expo on July 27. We're gonna, you know, reveal the lucky hunters for this year. I mean, that's why we're here.
[00:12:30] Speaker B: It's like the best day of the year.
[00:12:31] Speaker A: It is. It is. And it's, it's pretty awesome to see, you know, just the people that come to the expo and, you know, you're showcasing a lot of the work you've done in the last eleven years and just talking to people that are so excited, which we all are, to have a chance to, you know, draw a tag. And it is, when you look across the country, Pennsylvania has become pretty far up the list on sought after tags to draw when it comes to, when it comes to elk. But let's talk about our partnerships first with Rocky Mountain elk foundation. We're doing a lot with them, you know, and, you know, some of the new purchases, maybe if you want to expand on what's going on up here in the range.
[00:13:06] Speaker B: Yeah, and I can probably not going to be the best person to talk to about that, but. So RMeF, Rocky Mountain Elk foundation, is one of our key partners, along with the Keystone Elk Country alliance. That's our second main partner. And RMEF did assist us in purchasing additional game lands this year. Game lands 338.
And that's I mean, I think we've closed on it. Correct. Like, we own it and we can hunt it now. Yeah.
[00:13:30] Speaker A: We looked at it in turkey season.
[00:13:31] Speaker B: That's right. Yes.
[00:13:32] Speaker A: With Dave Gustafson. And what a beautiful place. And I saw a set of sheds that came. Elk sheds that came off that piece, you know, and they're already living there.
[00:13:42] Speaker B: They've been there for years. So it's nice that that's under public. Public. It's in public hands now and can be hunted.
[00:13:48] Speaker A: And those partners, Army f KiCA, they're very important to us because we're all in this. We're all in this together. It doesn't matter what we're doing. When you look at conservation, you know, without those partners, they help us get a lot of stuff done.
[00:14:00] Speaker B: Completely. I've often said we probably wouldn't have elk if it was not for Rocky Mountain Elk foundation and Keystone Elk Country alliance.
[00:14:07] Speaker A: Absolutely. And, you know, those. When we look at those partnerships, no matter what, if it's elk or whitetails or pheasants or quail, it doesn't matter what it is. We're all in this together. You know, we all want to leave the whole. This world of conservation better than we found it. I mean, that's the goal. So let's get into licensing. Cause that's something that's, you know, it's happening right now. I mean, we have till. July 14 is the last day that you can apply here in Pennsylvania. And, you know, after that, you got a week till we let everybody know when it. When it's happening. If you're lucky enough to draw one. And when, you know what? This year, how many license.
You know, it fluctuates every year. But how many licenses are out there this year?
[00:14:48] Speaker B: 140, 75 cows and 65 bulls.
[00:14:51] Speaker A: And it kind of explained the different seasons and how that.
[00:14:55] Speaker B: So we got three separate seasons. First one is archery season. Archery only, obviously. And that's the last two weeks of September. And we do that purposely. Cause that's rut, right? That's prime elk rut. Super exciting if you're into archery. I mean, I cannot imagine trying to chase after a bull bugling his head off with a bow.
[00:15:13] Speaker A: Pennsylvania bull.
[00:15:14] Speaker B: I'm super jealous of those people.
Second season that follows, that is our general season. That's the first full week in November. Sometimes it grabs, like, October 30 or Halloween, October 31. But it's always that first full week of September. Excuse me, November. And then our late season is the first full week of January. The following year, again, sometimes it grabs, like, December 30, December 31, somewhere in that range. But those three seasons are alkaline seasons. And then the 140 tags are split across those, and then within each season, there's different hunt zones that the tags are then split into.
[00:15:48] Speaker A: So you talked about that rut hunt in our first archery season, a good friend of mine from mountain, Utah, Al Morris, came in to and guided one of our first archery elk hunters. And he's the first year. Yeah, it was the first archery season.
[00:16:00] Speaker B: It's crazy how 2019 then. That's crazy. Yeah.
[00:16:03] Speaker A: But I remember Al called me afterwards, and I've worked back in my old days with Al, and he was on our elks, elk hunted all over the country. And he goes, anybody that, you know, sometimes we get this perception because you go through Benezette and you might see a big bull and, like, you know, these elk or tainted, he goes, if anybody thinks these elk are tame, he goes, that was one of the roughest hunts I've ever had in my life, and these are wild elk. And, and, um, he thoroughly enjoyed it. He wants to come back anytime. But, I mean, the, the rut hunt that they experienced was pretty incredible. And, you know, we can talk about that, too. And I might be down here on our list, but we're, we're going to talk about elk smart before we get out here. Don't, don't let me forget about.
[00:16:42] Speaker B: Yeah, that. We can finish with that.
[00:16:43] Speaker A: Okay. What, here's, here's a question you probably get asked a lot, and I know you have got these numbers figured out. You know, what are your odds when you look at it? Drawing. Drawing an elk tag. I mean, here's what, here's my, here's my. What I tell folks, you definitely can't draw one if you don't put in for the drawing. So that's how we look at it. Is a lottery.
[00:17:03] Speaker B: Yes, it is a lottery. It's completely random. It's not rigged. We get all kinds of, you know, stories every year. So, okay. If you don't put in at all, your odds are zero. If you put in to draw, your odds are a little bit better than zero.
They're not good. There's nothing we can offer there that will help that. We've got a highly coveted resource. A lot of people are interested in hunting it. The, the placation that I can throw out there is this dollar twelve. Right? It's $11.97 to apply. Like, I could dig around in my car or definitely my wife's car and find, you know, $11.97 so it's not expensive to apply. The odds are not good. There's, again, nothing we can do about that in order to actually. Do you want me to. I mean, I'll explain it even more.
[00:17:50] Speaker A: That's a challenge. We're going to come film you, dig in your wife's car to get $11.97.
[00:17:54] Speaker B: That would take like 2 seconds. There's change in money all over.
[00:17:58] Speaker A: You're in a doghouse.
[00:17:59] Speaker B: Find a french fry in there.
So.
Okay. To actually calculate the odds, every combination of season, sex, hunt, zone would have a unique set of odds. And if you calculate that all out, there's like, there's got to be hundreds of different combinations there. And then your bonus points would have to play into it as well. Just so I've said it, while we're on the topic of bonus points. Bonus point. You get one bonus point for every year that you are unsuccessful in an application. Right. You don't draw. You get one bonus point for that. And they act as a multiplier. So you got five bonus points. Your name goes in the hat five times and it effectively bumps the probability that you're going to draw that again. Combined with what season, what sex, buller, cow, and then what hunt zone you pick, all of that has an impact on your odds.
We give out fewer bull tags than we do cow tags. So there's less draws in that sense. So bull tag or bold draws are going to have worse odds than cow draws. If you go either sex, you're in it for all of them and you're going to have higher odds. Just realize that again, the odds are not good no matter what, which way you twist it, they're not good. But it's just, it's inexpensive to apply. And you're never going to win if you don't at least put in for it.
[00:19:10] Speaker A: Absolutely. And, you know, it's amazing to me when you're, when you're at the expo and the names are getting revealed and somebody's. And there's lots of folks that put in one time and get drawn.
[00:19:19] Speaker B: Yes, that's possibility, too. Right. So you could have the maximum number of bonus points this year. It's 21 for the general season. Right. You could have 20. Your name would be in the hat 21 times. You could be the 13 year old kid that put in for the first time and they get drawn. So it is still completely random. Just realize that it's slightly better if you, if you have those bonus points.
[00:19:37] Speaker A: Right. You know, when you look at, we look at zones and you know, we changed it a couple years ago where you can pick the zones, you know, that you apply for. And if you were applying for an elk, and you probably do.
[00:19:48] Speaker B: I get my point.
[00:19:50] Speaker A: I gotcha.
[00:19:50] Speaker B: So I don't wanna understand.
[00:19:52] Speaker A: Understand. We'd have to explain that there's nothing.
[00:19:55] Speaker B: In the regulations that says I can't apply. I feel like if in the rare event that I did draw, it would just. The scandal would be outrageous. And so I just. I just buy my point. And then when I retire in 20, some year, 28, no, now 19 years, when I retire in 19 years, game commission can't tell me what to do anymore. And I will cash in all those bonus points and I'll have intimate knowledge of the elk range at that point.
[00:20:21] Speaker A: Absolutely. So, you know, let's talk about probably the highly coveted areas, zones, whether it's bulls or cows or, you know, if you were given some advice out there, and I'm sure you give it a lot.
[00:20:32] Speaker B: Yeah. Again, one of the common questions is, like, what zone do I put in for? You know what? I want to kill a big bull. Where should I go? There's large bulls, there's big bulls. And when I say that, like, high quality bulls. Three hundred eighty s and above in every single zone.
For me personally, I'm going to pick zone three first is probably my primary. That's my favorite because it's almost walk in only, right? Everything's gated off and so you pretty much have to walk everywhere. But that means you're going to be by yourself, right. Not a lot of people are going to walk.
So zone three is my first pick. And then after that, I typically say zone ten. Zone ten is really large, covers qui hannah plateau, and then it extends up into first fork of the Cinnamon river. And the last one that I tell people is zone 13. Again, that's big and it's down kind of in the snowshoe clearance area. Route 144 runs from snowshoe to Renova and that bisects zone 13. So those are my favorite is 310 13. But just realize, any listeners out there, like, you can pick any zone and you'll find big bulls.
[00:21:33] Speaker A: What about cows? Let's talk about that. Cause a lot of people, I mean, they just want to put some, a lot of meat in the freezer.
[00:21:39] Speaker B: And I just got done saying that either sex is the way to go because you have the best odds of drawing.
Again, there's gonna. I mean, we allocate tags per zone based on the population, so we're not going to put a lot of tags into a zone that doesn't have, you know, a large number of animals in it. And that, that's, that goes for cows as well. So common zones for cows that typically have more tags in them are going to be twelve, four, two sometimes depends on the circumstances with two, but I'll say twelve and twelve and four would be good ones for Cowen.
[00:22:16] Speaker A: Let's talk about that, because as we progress into fall, we're going to get off elk for just 2 seconds. You know, we, we try to stress the importance and how important it is for herd management of, like, white tailed does and how important those antlerless harvests are. And it's the same thing in the elk range, you know, in a, in a smaller area. But how important are, is it for us to manage that, that herd?
[00:22:39] Speaker B: I mean, it's crew as part of wildlife management in general. Like, you can't even judge its importance. I mean, it's just, it's a fact. I mean, it's there.
[00:22:46] Speaker A: So what happened if you wouldn't shoot cows?
[00:22:49] Speaker B: I mean, eventually we'd end up having just way too many, well, we'd probably overpressure bulls, and then we'd probably just end up having way too many elk in certain areas. And again, we'd get into those conflict issues.
They'd start causing more damage on private ground, and we'd probably end up start having more problems with elk getting hit on the road, things like that. And I said it earlier about whitetails being in your cornfield. Definitely. Totally something. I mean, it's one thing to hit a whitetail on the road, something very different to hit an elk on the road.
People have died. We have had fatalities from elk being struck. So it's just a bad situation. They're big.
[00:23:22] Speaker A: You know, if you're traveling up here, especially in that September timeframe, you got to keep careful.
[00:23:26] Speaker B: Yes, I know. I'm so worried that I'm going to hit one one day, and that's going to make the news.
[00:23:30] Speaker A: But so when we talk about the drawing, let's talk about a little bit how that drawing works. I mean, we kind of did. And, you know, obviously, you know, you said it earlier, it's not rigged and it's not, I mean, it's legit.
[00:23:42] Speaker B: It's witnessed.
[00:23:43] Speaker A: I mean, it's a completely random process.
We do draw the numbers or the, we draw the hunters a few days before the reveal up here in Kica. And mainly because if you've ever been to benezet, the cell service up here, the Internet, nothing works. And we've almost failed a few times up here where the system went down.
[00:24:04] Speaker B: Yep.
[00:24:04] Speaker A: But go ahead and give us your spiel on it because you're way more intimate with it than I am.
[00:24:10] Speaker B: Yeah. So, I mean, again, you said it earlier, we do draw it ahead of time, and that is partially because it's challenging to have all that running at one time where it cannot fail.
And it's also cause there's hundreds and thousands of applications floating around in there, especially with everybody's bonus points and everything. It's just, there's a lot of names floating around in there, and so trying to do it live just makes it challenging. It's done a couple days ahead of time. It's witnessed, and then those results are revealed at the expo. And that's usually just a wonderful, exciting time for everybody to be there. A few years ago, when we started doing this, if you had asked me how many people are going to be at the expo that get drawn, I would have said zero. What are the odds of anybody being there? Every year it seems like we have at least one. Last year, I take that back. Last year, we had somebody's fan, like, somebody's son got drawn and the was there, and so they got real excited. But every year prior to that, we've had at least one person that has been there. And I don't know, again, what the odds of that are, but we're usually.
[00:25:09] Speaker A: Down at the booth, and when somebody's there that draws a tag, you can hear it the whole way across.
[00:25:13] Speaker B: I get to do the drawing, and I'm always like, if you get drawn, you better say something. You know, don't sit there quietly and smile, like, you better say something.
[00:25:20] Speaker A: They take your advice pretty clearly.
[00:25:22] Speaker B: Yes, every year.
[00:25:24] Speaker A: So we talked a little bit about the ruthen. You know, when does. Let's talk about the rut. You know, obviously, we're. We're past summer solstice and daylight hours are getting shorter. And when you look at whitetails, I mean, it's all part of it. I mean, is it the same thing with elk?
[00:25:38] Speaker B: Yes. So whitetail rut is going to be later than elk. Elk is a little bit earlier.
Usually second week in September, 3 week in September is going to be probably the peak of the rut, but anywhere from, like, the middle of September to the middle of October would be prime. And when I say that that's breeding season, you know, that's when conception is happening.
[00:25:56] Speaker A: That's when most of the cows are hitting estrus. Do they get another time when they. I mean, will they cycle again like whitetails?
[00:26:03] Speaker B: Yep. If a cow's not bred within approximately 21 days, she'll recycle. I'm sorry. If a cow is not bred approximately 21 days later, she'll. She'll recycle and give that opportunity again.
[00:26:13] Speaker A: So there's actually some rut activity that happens closer to rifle season.
[00:26:16] Speaker B: Sure. Yep, yep.
[00:26:17] Speaker A: Still be you going?
[00:26:19] Speaker B: Yeah, absolutely. Like, again, the peak would be middle to late September, and then there might be a second surge somewhere. Again, that middle of October timeframe.
[00:26:28] Speaker A: And just talk about how the rut happens with elk, how, you know, obviously they're herding animals, and the satellites talk about that structure just a little bit, if you would.
[00:26:35] Speaker B: Yeah, I mean, they're harem breeders. That what you're getting at. So. Yeah, so I use redneck term. Yeah. No, so an elk, a bull, a big bull, what we would call a herd bullae, is going to maintain as many cows as he can in kind of a harem, you know, a group.
[00:26:51] Speaker A: Probably like you in high school, right?
[00:26:56] Speaker B: No fewer satellite. Yeah, maybe I had wishes of that, but never really worked out.
All right, so harems are going to be anywhere from, like, I don't know, 20 to five ish animals, but they're real fluid, right? They move, they change all the time. The bull tries as much as he can to keep those groups together, but you'll see a cow just leave and linger off. And so there's fluidity between kind of the harems as that timeframe comes around.
[00:27:25] Speaker A: You know, when you look at her, like, how many satellite bulls would be around that harem, would you guess? I mean, what, two, three?
[00:27:30] Speaker B: I mean, there's constantly. And those are typically the younger bulls when we talk about satellite bulls, and they do just literally revolve around the harem, hence the name satellite, and they're just waiting for an opportunity that that herd bull is not paying attention or not looking.
[00:27:45] Speaker A: Sneak in there and, yeah, that was me in high school. But hide behind.
But when you think about it, too, and, like, when you look at western states and people shooting 350 inch bulls, I mean, giants that are. That are satellites, that's when that manage. I mean, we have to have satellites that are giant bulls.
[00:28:04] Speaker B: Yes.
[00:28:04] Speaker A: I mean, I know they're younger, but with our age class, I mean, what, what, what is the average age of.
[00:28:10] Speaker B: A harvested six and a half? Seven and a half would be the peak of the distribution. So, like, that's the average. And then typically, you know, those big monsters are going to be the 8910 year olds, if an elk makes it to 1213 14, they're going to start declining, you know, so the, but the big 400 inch bulls are typically around that again, that like eight or 910 year age range, that's their peak. I mean, that's their, generally speaking, there's variation there, but generally speaking, yeah. Antler development, antler structure is going to peak at like 8910.
[00:28:41] Speaker A: And there comes a point in time when those big bulls get so old that, like, they don't want to fight all the time, you know, they kind of become that old guy like me. It's how it is.
[00:28:51] Speaker B: The opposite of what you were in high school.
[00:28:53] Speaker A: No, I wasn't full of it. I was, I was chasing a career in high school. I wasn't that person, I promise you. But I, when you look at cows, and I know we just came out of it in calving season. Let's talk about when they calve.
[00:29:04] Speaker B: Yeah.
Now, well, I guess a little bit. Few weeks ahead of now, first part of June. So whitetails are generally going to be the end of May. Elk would be a week, two weeks later, first part of June, maybe June 5 would be the peak. And again, they'll have those ones that are born or bred late. They're going to be born later. Obviously, you can't change the gestation period, but, yeah, somewhere around the beginning of June is going to be the peak and 245 day gestation period.
[00:29:34] Speaker A: I was going to say their gestation period must be obviously longer than a whitetail.
[00:29:37] Speaker B: Yep. And actually, that's so interesting. We can get into evolutionary theory if you want, but that's why the rut would be earlier. Right? Like, gestation period is longer, so elk rut is earlier. Moose would have an even longer gestation period, and so their rut would be even earlier. But it's so that all the young of the year, calves, fawns, are all born at roughly the same time.
[00:29:58] Speaker A: What kind of predators do we all calve? I mean, here, especially here in Pennsylvania.
[00:30:02] Speaker B: Yeah. Black bear would be number one, probably followed by coyote after that. And that's really just on calves. As soon as they get to be, you know, eight, nine months old, they're not going to be prey for those animals anymore. And adults have almost zero natural predators, just people.
[00:30:18] Speaker A: What do you think the first coyote or bear that ever walked up onto an elk up here? Think about what went through their mind.
[00:30:24] Speaker B: When they went, oh, so, I mean, it certainly looked like a big snack to them. But I always point out that, like, predators understand risk and so if they see the whitetail fawn guarded by the, you know, 100 pound doe, that's one thing very different than the 20 pound, 25 pound calf guarded by the 600 pound calf cow, you know, so they, they probably can judge that.
[00:30:46] Speaker A: Well, we're predators, too, so we manage risk as well. Right.
[00:30:49] Speaker B: That's true.
[00:30:49] Speaker A: Yep. So when you're up here in elk range, sometimes you see an elk with a collar on it. Radio collar. Let's talk about some of the reasons that those elk have collars and some of the work that you've done in your career here, you know, in the last eleven years.
[00:31:00] Speaker B: Yeah.
Our elk are visible, particularly the ones around the benezet area. So any, any animals that have radio collars on them are going to get seen as well. And we get lots of questions about that. Three primary reasons for radio collars is, one, I said this earlier, they act as our correction factor for the aerial survey. Right. So they're, they're the spies, if you will, for, for our aerial survey.
Second one is going to be survival. So when we have a radio collar on an individual, we know whether it's alive or dead. We can calculate annual survival rates from that. We do that every year where we get an adult survival rate. And then the third thing is habitat selection. So those collars are also gps collars. We're getting latitude, longitude locations off of them every 13 hours or so. And then the idea is that you can go back into that location where the animal was. There's presumably something of value to the animal there and you can figure out what it was. Right. You can deduce what they're picking out of the environment, what they're picking out of their habitat that's favorable or valuable to them.
[00:32:00] Speaker A: And that information is invaluable for the fish.
[00:32:03] Speaker B: Again, that's part of wildlife management.
[00:32:04] Speaker A: Right. So let's talk about some other studies. I know some of the calving studies that you done, too. I mean, they're over, but let's talk, let's just go back.
[00:32:12] Speaker B: Yeah. So we did a calf survival project from, I mean, from 2020 to 2023. I said already that when you have a radio call around an individual, you can, you can get survival from that. For calves, we're really only talking about that first year. That's when they're technically a calf. As soon as they hit one year of age, now they're a yearling. But 2020 to 2023, we did calf survival where we caught calves shortly after being born. And we had mom radio collared as well. So we knew when they were born, and we'd run out there, basically just find the calf and then slip a little expandable radio collar over its head. And they're much smaller than, like, the adult collars, you know, don't picture that big, bulky collar, but small deal with an elastic band around it that would stretch as the animal grew. And then we could tell, you know, if one died, one got eaten by a black bear or something like that, we could figure out when that happened and where and then figure out a survival rate from that. So overall, 63% survival was the value for the three year study.
[00:33:09] Speaker A: Is that pretty high when it comes to wildlife?
[00:33:11] Speaker B: So if you look at the western states, that's definitely high. I mean, they rarely see over 50%. Now, western states have a much broader suite of predators than we do. You know, they got grizzlies, wolves, lions, stuff like that. Oh, we got.
[00:33:23] Speaker A: We got lions people out there, right?
[00:33:25] Speaker B: No, no, that's a whole other topic. Did you cover that with Keller already?
[00:33:30] Speaker A: I did.
[00:33:31] Speaker B: Good. Yeah, we won't go there then. So, yeah, 63% is. It's not great, it's not terrible. It'd be nice if it was a little bit higher, but it's good that we know it and we can compensate in our habitat management and then our harvest management as well.
[00:33:49] Speaker A: Speaking of cats, what was your last job out in Montana?
Didn't it have to do with cats?
[00:33:56] Speaker B: My master's was on mountain lions.
So.
[00:34:00] Speaker A: So all our mountain lion questions should come to you.
[00:34:03] Speaker B: Prior to, I was a biologist in Montana. Before here, that was. I had nothing to do with mountain lions there. But prior to that, I was at the University of Alberta, and my masters there focused on mountain lion elk interaction and mountain lion predation behaviors. Awesome. So, yes, I know a lot about mountain lions.
[00:34:17] Speaker A: Elk have made this area famous. I mean, it really has. And it is a giant tourist destination in our state.
When is the best time to come up here to try to see an elk?
[00:34:29] Speaker B: Probably the rut. The rut would be the most exciting time. The trade off that you're going to make there is that it's the busiest time. That said, I would still. I mean, there's nothing more magical than seeing that monster bull bugling his head off, especially if you're out here early in the morning, you know, mist or steam coming out of him, things like that. There is few sites more amazing than that, and that only happens during the rut. You can come up and see calves during the early spring. You know, elk in winter is also amazing. But again, probably that rut, September, October is going to be the most amazing time. If you catch it in late October, you're going to get fall colors as well. And you can climb a high ridge and just literally hear bugles echoing from one spot to another.
[00:35:09] Speaker A: There's way more than just seeing an elk when you come into elk country. I mean, yeah.
[00:35:13] Speaker B: It's the environment that you're. Yes.
[00:35:15] Speaker A: We're sitting here in the, one of the most beautiful hilltops in the world, in my opinion. You really take it all in. We were up a couple weeks ago helping you do some the calf capture stuff, and I'm standing there, June, I don't remember the date. Well, after turkey season and listening to Turkey's gobble. And just today when we met up, I know I heard a turkey gobble. I mean, we all doubted you, though. Yeah, don't doubt that one. You can doubt me on a lot of stuff. That one I know for a fact. But I mean, sometimes in this busy life that we live, we take a lot of things for granted and, you know, we jump at the chance anytime we can do a project up here with, with y'all because it gets us into God's country.
[00:35:56] Speaker B: Yeah. It just reminds you of why you want to, why, why we all got into this, so.
[00:36:00] Speaker A: Absolutely.
[00:36:01] Speaker B: Anyway, the route would be a good time to come up here and see elk. And again, Benezet tends to be the cultural center. Right. They have the claim of the elk capital of Pennsylvania. And that's accurate. I mean, they are, you can always.
[00:36:17] Speaker A: Go to the elk center. And, I mean, yes.
[00:36:19] Speaker B: Check that out. And elk visitor center is in Benezet. That's run by the Keystone Elk Country alliance.
And they do a wonderful job with that. So tons of educational opportunities and just taxidermy displays and cool stuff to see there.
[00:36:30] Speaker A: Lots of places you can hike. The fishing is incredible up here. It's a, it's a great, it's a great weekend getaway when you come up here to this part of the world, for sure.
[00:36:38] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:36:38] Speaker A: Before we get to the last question, I have one that I ask everybody, and I probably asked you this before, but I'm going to ask you again today. When you take the word conservation, we all use it a lot. You know, it's one of those crutch words. Not just crutch word, but we use it so much. Let's get deep into Jeremy Banfield. What does conservation mean to you?
[00:36:55] Speaker B: Oh, man, that's a good question.
You can spin it so many different ways. Right. You could call it wildlife protection where we want to conserve the resource into the future.
You could take it into just a value system where, you know, we have this, this passion for wildlife and the habitats that they occupy. What does conservation mean for me?
I'm going to have to link it back to, you know, the idea that we're here to make sure that we have elk and other wildlife, of course, for future generations. Right. That's the one that I feel like I'm working for the most is my kids, my kids kids and the legacy and the generations to come.
[00:37:38] Speaker A: And when you look at the game commission, working for the game commission, I.
[00:37:41] Speaker B: Mean, I got the best job, man. I told you that.
[00:37:43] Speaker A: But it's not, but it's not. You're not. But you're not really here for the money. You're here for the passion.
[00:37:48] Speaker B: Nobody's here for the money. Right.
[00:37:49] Speaker A: And that's what folks don't understand. You're here to make sure that you can leave it better than your family in one way or the other. Whatever your job or your skillset is, you're trying to do the best for wildlife, for hunting in the future of just what we don't know is going to happen when we're gone.
[00:38:03] Speaker B: And everybody in this agency is passionate. You know, nobody is here for the money. Nobody's here to just have a career. I mean, everybody is super interested and super passionate about what they do. So I always actually just tell students that are getting into wildlife and we'll just marry up. Like, you have to marry up if you want to just plan for that, you know?
[00:38:21] Speaker A: So let's talk about this one. It's something that you started. And, you know, we've been a big part of it with you is elk smart. And, you know, it's, it's. I think it's very important. It's caught on. People are getting it. And let's talk about elk smart.
[00:38:34] Speaker B: Yeah. So elk smart in one sentence is going to be.
It's our educational campaign, educational initiative designed to encourage people that visits here and recreate here to take responsibility for their actions, be mindful of their actions, and keep Pennsylvania's elk wild. There's four ways we can do that. First is give elk space. Right. We always say 100 yards. I realize sometimes the elk do not give you the opportunity to be 100 yards away, but we have to pick a good benchmark. And so I would just say people have a bubble. Elk have a bubble as well. It's just a little bit bigger. Right? Yeah. We want to give them space.
It can be dangerous, especially during the rut. They are surging with testosterone, and so we just want to give them a lot of space so that you have time to react and get out of a situation. If you get into 1. Second is don't feed them. It is illegal to feed the animals. Also puts them nose to nose with each other. Can promote the spread of diseases, things like that. The third one is don't name the animals. We get beat up over this one all the time.
[00:39:34] Speaker A: Yeah, we do. And let's talk about it.
[00:39:35] Speaker B: Good. I will gladly talk about that. So there's two kind of parts to this. The first is that when you name an animal, you take some of that, that wildness from. Right? Wait, why do we value elk? Why do we love elk? It's because they're wild. I mean, why do we love any wildlife? Because they're wild. It's in their name.
They are independent from us. Right.
They don't need us. They've developed in such a way or evolved in such a way that people are just. We don't have to be a part of their life. And so when we put a name onto them, we take some of that away, right? We steal some of that. We put human characteristics onto them. They're not pets. Okay? They don't need a name. Second piece of that is that oftentimes the big bulls are the ones that get named. And then inevitably, what happens to big bulls is they get killed during the hunt season. The hunting season. Legally, right. Legally harvested during the hunting season. And so to me, the simplest way to prevent kind of all of that needless contention that comes with that is to not name them. Right. It's a very simple solution. Just don't do it.
And then the last piece of Elksmart is just to, if you see something, say something, do your part, right? You have the elk belong to you just as much as they belong to somebody else. So if you see somebody trying to feed them, trying to put their children on their backs, trying to give them potato chips, whatever, you know, you have every right to call them out and be like, hey, don't do that. You know, it's a bad idea.
[00:40:50] Speaker A: Absolutely. And we all need to do that. We all need to, you know, say something when we see something that's not right, maybe that person doesn't know, you know? And the Elk smart initiative has been great. Some of the other states have kind of jumped on board. That's the definition of flattery, in my opinion.
[00:41:05] Speaker B: It's picking up. It's spreading. So it'll be less of a statewide thing and more of a regional thing, hopefully in the future.
[00:41:11] Speaker A: That's awesome. And, you know, you know, once again, I want to hit on those dates. You got till the 14th to apply for a tag and they're going to be revealed on the 27th. And, you know, that's something, too. In the last couple years, it's been a little earlier. So if you are able to draw one of those early archery tags in the rut, you have a little bit more time to get ready for it.
[00:41:28] Speaker B: Yeah, we bumped the expo up specifically for that reason.
[00:41:31] Speaker A: And I'm going to hit with another question that I get quite a lot. Quite a bit. We get quite a bit is about Outfitters. You know, they always ask, do you have to have an outfitter to hunt here?
[00:41:40] Speaker B: So, yeah, that's like a. I don't know where that came from. There's this misconception. It's kind of entrenched that you've got to have a guide or an outfitter to hunt elk in Pennsylvania. You do not. I mean, the game commission can't tell you that you have to hire a guide. So it is completely optional. It's a personal decision. If you don't want to scout, you don't want to worry about what you're going to eat or where you're going to sleep and stuff like that. Hire a guide. I mean, they'll take care of all that stuff for you. You want to do it on your own. Good. Just make sure that you put in the effort, put in the homework, put in the scouting, and so that you're successful.
[00:42:09] Speaker A: Yeah, we have a list of all the outfitters and guides. I mean, they're all permitted through us.
[00:42:14] Speaker B: Correct.
[00:42:14] Speaker A: And we have a list on the website. And, you know, every one of them is putting their time in out there. They're gonna. They're gonna help you out a bunch. But like you said, you don't have to have one, right?
[00:42:22] Speaker B: Yep. Personal decision.
[00:42:23] Speaker A: Absolutely. And we work with them, you know, hand in hand. You know, they're conservationists just like us, and they care about these elk. I mean, tenfold on a daily basis. I mean, some of the gentlemen that I know, like, they're out there this morning, you know, in the middle of them, kind of like my buddy Danny Galveston. I know he was out there with turkeys this morning. You know, it's just, they live it every day, but, Jeremy, again, thank you for joining us on call. The outdoors, the job you do, the pleasure that we have to work with you every day. But anything else that you want to add that we can let folks take home with?
[00:42:53] Speaker B: No. I mean, I think we covered all the big topics, and I sincerely appreciate your time and, you know, it was my pleasure to be here.
[00:43:00] Speaker A: Well, the other thing is we got to do this on a hotter day. I mean, next time we do an elk podcast, we have to wait till at least it's 100. We're only at 96 right now. But thank you again. Thank you for what you do for wildlife, Jeremy. And we're darn glad to have you here at the Pennsylvania Game commission.
[00:43:14] Speaker B: Thank you, Matt.
I.
