![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/18614402656_7e387fea63_k.jpg\")
U.S. Army paratroopers assigned to the 1st Battalion jump from a C-130J Super Hercules aircraft at Camp Guernsey Joint Training Center in 2015. (Sgt. Charles Delano\/U.S. Air National Guard)<\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s really no traditional migration or seasonal movements like you\u2019d see in a mountain herd, where they\u2019re getting pushed down because of weather,\u201d Game and Fish biologist Keaton Weber said.<\/p>\n
The insights Weber and colleagues gained during the research are giving them a leg up in an unrelated change underway for the Rawhide Elk Herd. It\u2019s among a handful of Wyoming elk herds that are being counted for the first time.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ve never managed this [herd] based on population,\u201d Weber said. \u201cIt\u2019s because it\u2019s 90-plus percent private land. It\u2019s a really difficult herd to manage that relies on access, just like the Laramie Range herds<\/a>.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n According to Game and Fish Deputy Chief of Wildlife Justin Binfet, four other hard-to-count elk herds were in this same position. They include: the Targhee Herd, residents of the western Tetons<\/a> along the Idaho state line; the Uinta Herd, which straddles the Utah state line in far southwestern Wyoming; the Petition Herd, denizens of the southern Red Desert; and last, the Pine Ridge Herd, which calls ranchland north of Casper home.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cIt really is meaningful to have estimates for herd numbers, where you can,\u201d Binfet said. \u201cBut it\u2019s also really challenging. It is not nearly as easy as some folks think it is. Elk can move long distances, they respond to pressure, they\u2019re pioneering into new spaces \u2014 and they can quickly move in and out of the state.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n The changes in how to manage these herds stem in part from the state\u2019s dissatisfaction with the current approach, which is based on \u201csatisfaction.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cI think it was a good idea to start with,\u201d Binfet said. \u201cBut [satisfaction-based objectives] proved problematic in their practice, a decade and a half later.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n It\u2019s a system that Game and Fish started using with seven elk herds and several other pronghorn and mule deer herds starting around 2010. All were problematic or costly to estimate because of diffuse distributions, lots of private land or factors like ungulates that cross state lines, Binfet said.<\/p>\n The way it\u2019s worked is that herds are considered to be achieving the objectives when more than 60% of landowners and hunters report being satisfied with the herd\u2019s status. But administering that system has been a challenge, Binfet says. Surveying enough landowners in a herd area annually can be a ton of work, he said, and lacking satisfaction scores can have multiple meanings \u2014 it can mean both perceptions of too many, or not enough elk.<\/p>\n Another cause for the change was Wyoming\u2019s recently revised compensation program for grass that\u2019s eaten by elk and other ungulates, Binfet said. The new payment plan<\/a>, which was preceded by a legislative fight<\/a>, uses calculations that change if a herd is under or over its population objective.<\/p>\n Establishing population targets for the first time can be complicated, even \u201cscary,\u201d he said. There\u2019s no existing hard data to go off of. And in places, like the Petition Herd\u2019s habitat in the Red Desert, there are \u201cmassive geographic expanses\u201d with elk at low densities.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cIf you classify or don\u2019t classify one giant group of 900 elk, it can really skew your assessment,\u201d Binfet said.\u00a0<\/p>\n Wildlife managers are leaning into technology to help. In the Petition Herd area, for example, pilots flew over the region at roughly 3,000 feet off the ground and used infrared technology to help with counting. Artificial intelligence is also being used to help with tallying elk captured in aerial images.\u00a0<\/p>\n But it\u2019s still a work in progress.\u00a0<\/p>\n North of Casper in the Pine Ridge Herd, the state agency is set on proposing a first-ever population objective of 1,500 elk, Binfet said. But assessments for other herds aren\u2019t yet finalized, he added.\u00a0<\/p>\n In the Rawhide Herd, in and around Camp Guernsey, a recent aerial survey estimated 830 elk, factoring in an adjustment based on animals\u2019 \u201csightability\u201d on the landscape, according to Weber, the Game and Fish biologist.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cWe use that number with caution,\u201d he said. \u201cDue to these sightability designs and this herd being so unevenly dispersed across the herd unit. It was challenging. We think the number is low.\u201d<\/p>\n The first-ever proposed population objective for the Rawhide Herd that Game and Fish rolled out to the public was 1,800 elk. It\u2019s a number \u2014 along with the other herd goals \u2014 that the Wyoming Game and Fish Commission will review at its September meeting in Lander.\u00a0<\/p>\n Wherever the number ends up, it likely won\u2019t have much bearing on operations at Camp Guernsey, said Amanda Thimmayya, the Wyoming Military Department\u2019s natural resource program manager. There\u2019s an annual hunt at the training center \u2014 it doubles as the Broom Creek Hunter Management Area<\/a>. But there are constraints to dialing the hunting pressure up in a place where it\u2019s easy for savvy elk to take refuge, she said.<\/p>\n \u201cWe can only provide so much opportunity when we\u2019re surrounded by private lands,\u201d Thimmayya said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"In the middle of winter \u2014 starting in 2018 stretching into 2021 \u2014 contracted helicopter capture crews managed…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":65655,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[51],"tags":[79,201],"class_list":{"0":"post-65654","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-wildlife","8":"tag-science","9":"tag-wildlife"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/65654","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=65654"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/65654\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/65655"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=65654"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=65654"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=65654"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"\/](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/Targhee-Herd-cow-scaled.jpg\")
Staffers with the Idaho Fish and Game Department fit a GPS collar on a cow elk from the Targhee Herd in early 2019. The interstate herd is transitioning to population-based management for the first time on the Wyoming side of the state line. (Mike Koshmrl\/WyoFile)<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/Petition-elk-hunt-area.jpg\")
The Petition Elk Herd dwells in Wyoming\u2019s hunt area 124, a high-desert expanse that stretches to the south of Interstate 80 in the Red Desert. (WGFD)<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/Camp-Guernsey-elk-map.jpg\")
<\/p>\n