Nevada's Elk Main Beams and Tooth Rings, Oh and Moose - Cody McKee

This week Aaron Keller and Bobby Jones sit down with NDOW's Big Game Staff Specialist Cody McKee to hear how Elk and Moose are doing in the Silver State.  

Cody shares how NDOW’s new adaptive elk management plan may affect tag quotas and gives some great insight into how these herds are managed. Spoiler alert, thanks to teeth collected from hunter harvested bulls in 2025 we can say that Nevada’s average bull elk age is the highest on record. He also talks about how well moose are doing across the state.

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:22

Welcome to Nevada Wildlife, brought to you by the Nevada Department of Wildlife. I'm your host, Aaron Keller, joined by co-host Bobby Jones, special guest today. Staff specialist over Moose and Elk, Cody McKee.

SPEAKER_04 0:37

Yeah, hey, thanks for having me. Feels like we are just here. Right?

SPEAKER_01 0:41

We uh we sat down about 45 minutes ago and we've been talking, and I was like, well, we might as well just record this, because it's all good stuff. Great conversation to start it off. Let's um let's talk elk to start. So you're over elk and moose, right? Correct. And so let's start with elk. Um I th I think there's some moose info we want to talk about, but let's start with elk. Um how is the elk population in Nevada looking?

SPEAKER_04 1:10

Yeah, I mean the elk population here has been doing pretty well for a number of years. Um, you know, I think a lot of hunters are gonna be interested in knowing that we just made some pretty big changes to elk management here. Probably the biggest change that we've had in 20 years. Uh and that's you know, a lot of a lot of hunters have been focused, hyper-focused, laser focused on numbers of elk, and we've heard over the years that people want to see more elk, and we finally created a new process to where we have a little bit more flexibility um and responsiveness to managing number of elk on the landscape. That's the adaptive population objective process. Um, and so essentially where what we're doing is we're now transitioning from having this fixed ceiling number of elk within any given herd management area, and uh now we're being afforded the flexibility to manage those elk annually and to uh introduce some increases or or decreases depending on conditions in the area and and possible conflicts with other user groups. So this last March was the first year that we implemented that that new program, and uh we saw some increases in certain elkes, we saw some decreases in others, and we saw some places where elkes are are staying about the same as they did last year.

SPEAKER_01 2:39

You're talking quota.

SPEAKER_04 2:41

Or what are you talking? Number of elk. Number of elk.

SPEAKER_01 2:43

Number of elk going up and down.

SPEAKER_04 2:45

But that number of elk is going to then sort of snowball into the number of tags that we offer, especially for cows. Right. Now uh Well that's exciting news.

SPEAKER_01 2:57

I mean something changing after twenty years.

SPEAKER_04 2:59

Yeah, it's it's a big deal. You know, we're it's it's slow change. Okay. And I think I think that's the real value of this is that we're gonna be able to we're gonna be able to be um very deliberate and moderate in changes so that we don't get to a point where we realize, oh, wow, like things have gotten a little bit ahead of us, and now we're really gonna have to ramp up hunter harvest or management to bring numbers down kind of like what people might recall from back in like 2014, 2015 when elk numbers really peaked. Uh but you know, with that comes a little bit of growing pain too, because uh when when elk herds increase, the primary mechanism that we have for managing numbers is through hunter harvest. So if we want to allow herds to increase under those incremental changes, then that's when people are gonna see their tag numbers decrease. And then alternatively, if we're required to re to reduce the n the size of the herd, then uh you'll you would see the number of tags go up. Um and and we're seeing that this year. So there is a lot of variability in certain areas where there's substantial tag increases and other areas where there's substantial tag decreases now. I think it's also good to remember that the you know the the primary tool we're using is cow harvest, so those changes are really in our cow elk hunts. And I know a lot of people enjoy cow elk cunting.

SPEAKER_01 4:32

Yeah, which I will be sad. I'm sad to hear that. I'm very sorry.

SPEAKER_04 4:36

I'm a cow hunter. But it you know, it's it's all about the those long-term gains, right? We're we're gonna go through the short-term pain to get there, but long term, um, if we're managing towards more numbers of elk, once we hit the that stable threshold, that means we'll be able to offer more opportunity for hunters.

SPEAKER_03 4:55

And just just to make sure I've got it straight. So the old system, say herd management was set at 500, you are always managing towards that 500 number. If you got above it, you're going back to it. If you got below it, you're trying to work up to it. And now it's to the point where rather than that five hundred being static forever, you it can be adjusted down to four fifty or it could be adjusted up to five fifty, and then you make the changes to try and help push in that.

SPEAKER_04 5:20

And it could go over those ten percent increases or decreases, they could go over successive years, you know. So um it really allows us to be more responsive to what's happening in Nevada. You know, over the two decades since we last had a big um change to elk management, Nevada's changed tremendously. I mean, it and it's always almost always in favor of elk because of their diets, the type of habitat that they like. When you burn large swaths of sagebrush steppe or remove pinyon juniper, the resulting vegetation that comes back is typically highly beneficial to elk and in their diet. Um, and so uh we're now afforded the ability to be more flexible um in the face of a changing Nevada.

SPEAKER_01 6:07

How um so maybe just to to go back one more step on this adaptive management, is it by how is it block grouped? Is it by hunt unit or by county or met population or how does that how does that work?

SPEAKER_04 6:25

Yeah, so it's it's um based on what we're calling established herd management areas, um, and those have already been identified through previous years of elk planning efforts. Um and a lot of the details of those elk plans, they still apply, but when it comes to managing towards a specific number, that's where we're where we've been given more flexibility uh to manage. Um so you know, you have certain areas, certain herds in the state where uh when they're grouped together by unit, you have one unit where you're trying to keep elk numbers down because of potential conflicts. You have other areas where you want those herds to grow, and uh we're gonna continue to apply that management philosophy to how we manage within those established elk areas. Uh but but again, instead of having this fixed value that doesn't change over time, as Bobby pointed out, um now we're gonna see a little bit of a little bit of variability.

SPEAKER_01 7:22

Right. Um and is that more work on you and and the biologists? Or how's is it the same amount of work?

SPEAKER_04 7:30

I would say it's it creates a little bit of a new workflow that we're not used to yet. And anytime you bring on new change, there's an adjustment period to figure out how to work within that new system. And so for us this year, you know, we added two new meetings through the elk management subcommittee to the Wildlife Commission where they deliberated and discussed a lot of the status or a lot of the information pertaining to the status of elk herds and the potential for conflicts and what kind of uh depredation concerns have existed over time in those places. Uh the department staff helped facilitate those conversations and provide supporting material for those discussions. So, you know, at that point it it did increase a little bit of work, but um I again I think that we all realize the real value and benefit of this into the future. Um, you know, one, we're gonna be providing a more transparent process for how we're managing our elk herds and what number is our target. Uh we're providing this new venue for uh stakeholders, people that are that live in these areas where elk exists to come to us if they're experiencing problems. Uh and then and then finally, you know, again, it's just it comes down to being able to to more adaptively manage our herds uh given given the changing environment.

SPEAKER_01 8:56

In that uh in that process, has there been any bright spots that you've noticed or anything you want to tell the people that are listening?

SPEAKER_04 9:07

Bright spots. With respect to the adaptive management respect to like elk numbers, or have you seen any big jumps or anything that you're Yeah, I mean w in in adopting this new process, we had to establish a starting point. Um, a starting point of numbers. And so we had certain elkes that at the time of adoption were either well above, or in some cases we had some that were below the existing fixed population objective. And so uh by adopting this, uh we were given a little bit more room. Um for instance the uh 076, 077 elk traditionally had been managed towards about 1200 elk with the new process. We're we're now allowed to manage towards about 2,000. So you saw a substantial jump um in the abundance of elk on the landscape there, and in other places we saw a bit of a decrease. Uh, but again, it sort of is is allowing us to um m to to to sort of take advantage of what we currently have instead of trying to either drive down populations substantially or just completely put the brakes on Hunter Harvest while we let populations grow to some new ceiling that could be forty to fifty percent greater than what they currently are now.

SPEAKER_01 10:29

Yeah, it's interesting to think about because it's like two different like you said, you got the hunter harvest, so you don't want to necessarily cut tags way down to where people are upset about the number of tags, but you also want the population to grow. So I could see that being a a fine balance of kind of social concerns to conservation concerns.

SPEAKER_04 10:55

I mean we're we're definitely doing our best to weigh those various perspectives, but uh, you know, I think I have to be completely honest with the listeners, people that are applying for elk hunting this year, that you're probably gonna notice the change in cow elk tags, and I would definitely encourage people to track down the department's tag rec tag quota recommendations for elk to figure out whether or not those areas that you really like to hunt experience the big change.

SPEAKER_03 11:22

And then to take it one step further, the uh or I I at least encourage people that are really interested, they want to know what our recommendations are, but the final recommendations come from the commission, and that'll be at the May 8th and 9th Commission meeting coming up here in Reno. Yeah, coming up pretty quick. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 11:41

It's hard to believe.

SPEAKER_01 11:42

Yeah, I mean, long pa long looking long a long ways down the road, like more elk. It's gonna be great. I'm an elk hunter, you know. I I want to see more elk. Yeah, I'm pro-elk guy.

SPEAKER_04 11:53

Elknut, you know, here. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 11:55

Yeah. So I think it's exciting for sure.

SPEAKER_04 11:58

I think all of us in the room like elk, right? You know, but at the same time, we also understand that elk um and uh their presence on multi-use public lands can come with some other challenges, and so we're doing our best to try and find that balance between um Nevada's ability to support more elk, but also managing the tolerance levels that exist for elk in those places. And I really think that we're striking a a really good balance between those two feet those two factors.

SPEAKER_03 12:39

Yeah, I'm just I'm I'm laughing. There's so many ways to take it from here. But I'll take it wherever you want. We'll let we'll let you choose your fighter here. Do you want to jump into elk satisfaction hunter satisfaction data for elk hunts or age class? Two topics people are gonna like, but I think you have interesting information to share with people.

SPEAKER_04 12:58

Yeah, well, I mean, I think it's probably pertinent just to talk about age class because this year is the first year that we've collected incisor teeth from hunter-harvested bulls since 2020, and we can use those teeth to estimate the age of bulls. We submit it to a lab in Montana. They uh count cementum rings on the lower incisors just like you would tree rings. Um and so we've we found some pretty interesting findings this year from hunters. In 2020, the average age of a hunter-harvested bull was 5.8, and then this year from those submitted incisor teeth, we saw that average age increase to 6.4. And I think it's important to keep in mind that in 2020, when we collected teeth, that 5.8 was the highest ever. So of all the years that we've collected teeth from Hunter Harvested Elk, 2020 was the highest, and we just saw a jump of about half a year from hunters. Um and so I think that definitely is shedding some light on how we've been using main beam data to guide our harvest recommendations. I don't uh, you know, I don't want to deviate from that process currently, but I think it's it's it's cause for us to kind of reflect a little bit on how we've been using main beam to craft our harvest recommendations and and whether or not we need to think about more of a hybrid approach going forward or if we um should be attempting to take teeth a little bit more frequently. Uh, but but it's I think you know ultimately we don't currently have an age that we're targeting our harvest for. We're using uh main beam length as a surrogate for age, which there is a really strong correlation between the length of your main beam and the age of an elk. Uh and that relationship is strong until seven, six and a half, seven. But after seven, that's where you start to see that relationship destabilize. Um as an elk gets older beyond seven, that relationship can stay flat. Um or what I think also happens and is maybe driving some of the information that we're now analyzing is you start to see a drop-off in main beam length. And so interestingly, when we plot the age of elk in Nevada over time, we saw back in 2014 that the average age of a bull was somewhere around five years of age. The main beam, average main beam length at that time was forty-four and a half inches or something uh something around there. Now flash forward to 2025, and the average age of a harvested bull is almost six and a half years old. Meanwhile, that average main beam is forty-five. So essentially we're seeing this tremendous increase in gain or tremendous gain in average age, but really negligible change in in main beam. And so all of that to say is that while we can continue to increase the average age of a bull in our harvest, and again we don't have a target age identified anywhere in our management plans or our hunter hunter guidelines, but we're not gonna see any change in main beam, and it might even decrease because of that relationship that I was talking about earlier, that that curve linear relationship where main beams actually decrease as a bull gets older than seven.

SPEAKER_03 16:53

Is that where you would say tip typically a bull is gonna max out? And I'm just like trying to give this context for other people, because I want to say deer is maybe five or six or typically, and I think elk might be a smidge and older maybe six or seven. Just as a like big broad general statement.

SPEAKER_04 17:09

Yeah, I mean I think for deer, if you were to look at averages, which you know, there's always gonna be outliers and data sets no matter how you look at them. But on average, and and this is supported by other um heavy hitters in the mule deer management world, you're looking at a four and a half to five-year-old deer is probably your max. And I think what we're seeing with our L curd is that six and a half to seven is probably where you're hitting that sweet spot with respect to like antler growth potential. But again, there's always going to be outliers. I can look through our data sets and I can find a five-year-old bull that was probably 340, and I may find a 12-year-old bull that was like 295. So it doesn't always these these trends don't always stay cont consistent, but what we want to do is look at averages and look for trends in our data, and and what the trends are telling us are um, you know, we can continue to be restrictive in our harvest and we can increase the average age if that is what Nevada sportsmen want. Uh, but I cannot guarantee that you that you are going to notice any difference in the field with respect to the um antler potential of the elk that you're looking at on your hunt.

SPEAKER_01 18:29

Right. Yeah, the bulls will always get older. They can't get a might not get bigger.

SPEAKER_03 18:34

And probably not. Which is a long way of saying really good time to draw an elk tag. An antler dog tag.

SPEAKER_04 18:41

Is it ever not a good time to get to draw another elk tag?

SPEAKER_03 18:44

Well, I'm just I'm I'm it's cool that you laid all that out there because I don't think that's clear to everybody that I would assume a lot of people would just think, well, older elk, that's better. Right. That has to be better. You know what there's diminishing returns at some point.

SPEAKER_04 18:58

There's somebody listening to this right now that's like, no. Like, dude, you're wrong, and that's okay. Uh but I would I would gladly um sit down with anybody that feels strongly that um this isn't the case, and and we can go over our our data sets to to look at that. Again, outliers exist everywhere, it doesn't matter what kind of data set you're looking at. Uh, but when you talk about trends um and looking at relationships, that's where you're looking at those averages. And um, you know, our our we have some really we have a really strong data set both this year but also going back to 2007, 2008, the first year that we started collecting and why don't so we collect teeth every five years. Yep.

SPEAKER_01 19:46

Ish. Why don't we collect teeth more off more frequently?

SPEAKER_04 19:51

That might be the direction we're headed. So uh that main beam information, um, we adopted that about ten years ago. Um collecting teeth is uh resource intensive. So somebody from the department this year, Emily um in the game division really spearheaded the hunter coordination, getting envelopes out, um, messaging hunters and organizing teeth as they come in to like kind of help us address that need. But she has other things that she could work on, be working on at the same time. And so we've been using this main beam metric is our surrogate for age, and uh we're not wrong, um, but I think we've sort of hyp gotten hyper focused on that main beam as being sort of the end all be all the goal, and there's a particular proportion of bulls that we're targeting to have that, and maybe it's time we rethink, maybe we need to shift that earlier. If we don't want to do teeth every year, maybe we need to think about a smaller proportion of of bull elk meeting this main beam metric in order to to sort of maximize the hunting potential that we can provide while minimizing any negative experiences of like, you know, a noticeable decrease in in trophy quality or um you know, negatively impacting the productivity of an elk herd because we've taken too many bulls.

SPEAKER_03 21:29

Now now for the topic that has nothing to do or almost nothing to do with uh trophy potential, hunter satisfaction. What is our hunter sat what do we what's the question that we ask people to gauge what hunter satisfaction is? I think this is the most underrated piece of information we give hunters to consider when they go to apply for hunts. And if I'm not the number one proponent of that, maybe Cody is.

SPEAKER_04 21:57

Well, I guess it depends. Um Yeah, I mean everybody that gets a tag in Nevada is answering that same question. I would ask you, ask them, you know, if you get a survey from your local grocery store or the hardware store. I mean, we all get them in the email, and somebody asks us, well, how satisfied were you with this experience? How do you answer that? Right?

SPEAKER_03 22:24

Well, that's what I meant was is uh I think the question is how satisfied were you with this hunt?

SPEAKER_02 22:28

Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 22:30

And we have it answered. It's uh one of the questions that's in our mandatory report, or mandatory return card or mandatory hunter survey questionnaire. And I think it's it's cool, in my opinion, because it wraps everything into one. How satisfied were you on a uh scale of one to five, five being the highest. Sure. And I only say it as a underrated tool because I'm never gonna get to do all of these hunts, but I can use that as another gauge of like, are people having fun? Like, was this enjoyable? Was it satisfying? I think it's the uh the everything subjective metric, but that it kind of bears out in uh the long run.

SPEAKER_01 23:07

Yeah, it's hard yeah, for me it's hard to kind of wrap my head around. Have you ever given you've had a quite a few tags. Have you ever given a tag or a hunt less than five stars?

SPEAKER_03 23:16

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 23:16

You have?

SPEAKER_03 23:17

For sure.

SPEAKER_01 23:18

Have you ever gone below four?

SPEAKER_03 23:20

I don't know.

SPEAKER_01 23:21

Right. I feel like we're pretty positive when it comes to hunting, so like I don't know. I think it would skew that way in my mind, but yeah.

SPEAKER_04 23:30

I mean uh uh a hunter sa anytime you respond to those types of surveys, it's subjective, it's in the eyes of the beholder. You know, and we could we could implement the most robust, rigorous sampling protocol and answer all the questions, and we may never fully be able to say definitively, hey, this is the reason that somebody responded that they were satisfied, right? Um but I do think it's a pretty valuable gauge, and I think it's capturing these voices that we may not always hear from when we go through our annual season setting, quota setting cycle. And so to your point, Bobby, it's an extremely valuable data set that we could probably leverage to use more often. Uh, and if we're, you know, if we want to dive into it, for instance, um, you know, when we're talking about people's hunts, and I'm talking about main beam data and age data, uh I have a lot of information at my fingertips when I'm when I'm working through our quota recommendations and evaluating what our biologists have provided us. Uh, and I can look at that hunter satisfaction, I can look at whether or not somebody was successful on their hunt, how that relates to satisfaction. So, not surprising to you guys and probably anybody that's listening, but if you didn't harvest, your hunter satisfaction is much lower than somebody that did. I mean, that that's straightforward, right? But then once we go beyond that, okay, well, what if everybody harvested or who harvested? How did that go? And at least for bull elk hunting, the average response if you killed a bull on a bull elk hunt, no matter how big it was, is that you had a mostly satisfied experience. And uh there's very little difference between a young age class animal and a mature age class animal in satisfaction. But if you really wanted to dive into it, we saw that the there is a a cutoff at 44 inches. So if you harvested a bull elk that was 44 inches or greater, that you were likely to be more satisfied than somebody that harvested a bull elk that was 44 inches or less. But again, keeping in mind that on average you reported at least a four or higher, regardless of what the quality of the animal is. You're still pretty satisfied. You you had a good hunt. Right. Um, and so that again, kind of speaking back to main beam data and so on and so forth, it does kind of make you think about how um how you want to use that information to sort of drive your management into the future, and I think it definitely at least provides us with some things to ruminate on for a bit.

SPEAKER_03 26:42

Yeah, and I guess I use it mainly as a uh relative to the other hunts, right? Mm-hmm. Is just trying to get a gauge of one extra kind of piece. Like I'm uh I'm looking for an edge or looking for a little more information. You can't do all these hunts, but if twenty-five hunters went on this hunt and they are pretty satisfied, I can at least think like, okay, like that is probably not gonna be a bad time.

SPEAKER_04 27:03

I mean, I don't know if we I'm just thinking off the top of my head, there's probably very few hunts that we offer regardless of whether it's elk deer, bronghorn, bighorn sheep that the average hunter satisfaction is anything less than like neutral. Which is actually pretty good if you think about like the various experiences that people are having, the things that you can't predict. You got a flat tire when you're driving out there and that kind of set the stage for a bad week. I mean there's all kinds of factors at play, but in general I think it speaks to the quality of experience that you're gonna get when you come out to Nevada.

SPEAKER_03 27:45

Which is a perfectly good selling point in the sense of the stuff. We didn't tell you to say that. We didn't coach you up. That was all you. Wal also probably not a surprise hunters like to go hunting.

SPEAKER_01 27:57

Yeah, hunters want to hunt. And it does make sense that if you kill a bull, you're pretty happy.

SPEAKER_04 28:03

I mean I am. I got a I I had a spike tag last year and uh it was an amazing hunt.

SPEAKER_01 28:10

Yeah. Yeah, we got a guy that works for us. He hunted the whole season. He killed his bull on the twentieth, twenty-someth day. Archery hunt. Archery hunt. Bull came back at twelve years old.

SPEAKER_04 28:26

It was fifteen.

SPEAKER_01 28:27

Fifteen years old. Sorry. I had to correct you there. Fifteen years old. Yeah, and not the like the biggest bull that was killed last year, right? But super satisfied, got all the juice out of the tag that he had, and um, yeah. Good example of older bull archery hunt, fun.

SPEAKER_04 28:49

I mean, we all saw pictures of that bull, and we were probably like, oh, that's like what four or five-year-old bull maybe? If you just saw a picture of it, you were like, Oh, that's a I would I would never have guessed 15, I'll tell you that.

SPEAKER_03 29:03

Yeah. I it's these conversations and talking to him has made me kind of rethink some things for sure.

SPEAKER_04 29:09

Well, yeah, I mean, and and how many people are like out in the field on a hunt and they look at something and they know definitively that they're looking at an old or a young animal, and I I just you know, I don't think that that's actually something that you can accurately assess until you have your hands on them and you're able to look at their teeth, their body condition. Like uh there's a lot of factors. I mean, sure, you know, generally older is probably gonna like body size be bigger, but if you're just looking at antlers, it's it it can be a bit deceiving.

SPEAKER_01 29:42

It's funny because after um I I totally agree. Because I I I look at body size, you know, and you can th kind of think older. But I was gonna say the uh the funny thing is I think it made him more satisfied when he found out that it was older.

SPEAKER_04 29:59

I would agree, so because I can see what that person reported on their hunter satisfaction, and I'm assuming that it went up after he found out about that.

SPEAKER_01 30:08

Yeah, which is fun to think about as well.

SPEAKER_03 30:10

But the other part that's cool, and not to create I I guess thinking about like Emily and doing extra work to get the teeth is that uh we can do anything, we can't do everything, we're only so many people, but it I think there might be even satisfaction in just knowing a little more about the animal. Or like I've always thought that a little more of the story you feel like I don't know, you're a little more connected just like knowing knowing something like that, which is cool.

SPEAKER_04 30:34

Yeah, I think it's I mean I I a hundred percent agree with you. It it just you know creates that deeper connection to the animal that you harvested when you look at the picture. Now you you have better context of that animal, for instance, the bull that Aaron's mentioning. I mean, think of all the things that have changed in the world over fifteen years that that bull has now not necessarily survived it, but I mean you're talking about COVID pandemics. I mean, I was still in graduate school when when that when it was born as a calf back in the house.

SPEAKER_01 31:06

Well, anyhow it started a lot of hunters. Yeah. You know, staying alive for 15 years.

SPEAKER_03 31:12

And this person 15 years ago was in a very different place.

SPEAKER_01 31:15

Right. Yep, definitely.

SPEAKER_03 31:17

So Alright, don't let us let you go without talking about moose. We're gonna get in trouble if we don't talk about moose. Just give us a give us a one-liner. Where are we at?

SPEAKER_04 31:30

Um man, moose are doing well. Um the department's recommending a slight increase to tags this year, so your draw odds just went up. And uh the information we're getting from the hunters in the field is is uh really what's helping spearhead that change. Uh but we also know that the population is growing, the age structure is uh shifting, and that there's the ability to accommodate uh a little bit more harvest this year that we hope to be able to provide going forward.

SPEAKER_01 32:02

Does that seem predictable to you? As far as like more, we knew we were gonna get more moose, we were they were gonna get a little older, we were Is it like on I think so.

SPEAKER_04 32:13

There's you know, there's definitely some things that um we're still learning about the population here. Some challenges with being able to really quantify these really big bodied creatures but are dispersed across a really great geographic area, um and then also being able to accurately assess how productive they are. Uh and so these, you know, the estimates that we have are population estimates, I think are really conservative compared to what the true number are. Um but we also want to make sure that we have um hard data that we're comfortable with and informing our our estimating process.

SPEAKER_01 32:59

Yeah, I I just meant like not to put you on the spot, but uh like I've heard you talk to the commission and seen your presentations and we've talked about this for for a few years now, and and it it was always seemed like hope. Like you were hopeful that the population was gonna get bigger and that we were gonna see great reproduction and that we know there's no natural predators to moose because they're so big. Yeah. And that's what I meant.

SPEAKER_04 33:24

Like it looks like Yeah, they're checking all the boxes, yeah. And it's really cool in that um as I had predicted three, four years ago, and uh probably not a surprise to some, but we're really starting to see a lot of population growth and expansion into the East Humboldt and Ruby Mountains. So our moose have found their way across Interstate 80. Uh they've found the the high quality habitats in those mountain ranges, and we're starting to see proliferation of the moose herd in those places, and I think that's really cool. And um just given my understanding of the mountain range and the requirement, the habitat requirements for moose, there's just a lot of potential there for them for numbers to increase while they're in those places.

SPEAKER_01 34:11

Is there anything that doesn't like the Ruby Mountains? I mean, like I think everything loves the Ruby Mountains, and it seems like that's always high production.

SPEAKER_04 34:20

What are they the they're the Alps of Nevada, right? Yeah. You know, you've got this high elevation mountains that don't necessarily the the um the systems that reside there don't really fit into the outlying mountain ranges, higher diversity, richness.

SPEAKER_01 34:36

I feel like you can't talk about the ruby without smiling or like having only place in North America with Himalayan snowcock and moose. Himalayan snowcock.

SPEAKER_04 34:45

I mean, I think you could say that like Himalayan snowcock and mountain goats, Himalayan snowcock and Rocky Bighorn. That's the trick.

SPEAKER_01 34:54

Yeah. Well that's exciting. I'm glad to hear that the moose population is continuing to grow and expand. And they're doing that all on their own. We haven't touched them yet.

SPEAKER_04 35:03

They're doing it all on their own.

SPEAKER_01 35:05

Yeah. Which is kinda wild.

SPEAKER_04 35:09

Yeah, I mean a lot of g great things to be excited about in the elk and moose program. I'm probably one of the more fortunate individuals in the at least in the game division staff, and that we're often working on species that are in crisis, and um at least for elk, we're sort of like, hey, we gotta kinda keep our tabs on these these guys because we don't want them to get away from us.

SPEAKER_01 35:35

Yeah. Not for lack of work, right? That this stuff is is booming and uh seems to be headed in the right direction. Definite bright spot in Nevada. Among many. Yeah, among many. It's a sunny state. Yeah. Well, cool. I'm I'm surprised we fit all that info into one podcast. That was a lot. I thought we were gonna have to split it up into part one, part two, but good job rattling off all that info.

SPEAKER_04 36:05

Yeah, you're welcome. Anytime. Uh happy to happy to talk about the things I do.

SPEAKER_01 36:11

Yep. Exciting uh exciting stuff for Elk and Moose in Nevada, and uh yeah, should be an exciting time this application period this fall. Um yeah. Definitely looking forward to it. Uh few elk hunters are gonna be happy, I think. So uh thank you everyone for listening. That does it for this week's November What's the first time.