Mendocino Blacktail group presents long-term wildlife monitoring, points to bears as major fawn predator

Paul Turett, leader of the Mendocino Blacktail Association and a former District 3 commissioner, told the Mendocino County Fish and Game Commission that a long‑term camera‑trap monitoring project on Mendocino National Forest lands is producing baseline data the group hopes will inform regulatory recommendations.

Turett said volunteers and fundraising have paid for the work and that last year the program deployed camera coverage across roughly 400 square miles and collected about "758,000 photos last last year." He said the association shares its data with the Forest Service and with Region 1 (the California Department of Fish and Wildlife regional office) and is using AI tools to speed image processing.

"It was determined that the black bears were responsible for most of the mortality of the fawns," Turett said, summarizing results from earlier studies the group provided to state biologists. He said the monitoring is intended to establish a baseline so that future management actions can be measured against objective data.

Why it matters: Turett framed the work as conservation‑minded and aimed at producing management options that balance forest health, wildlife populations and public use. The group is developing a stakeholder initiative it calls "Agenda 23" and said it will bring proposed regulatory changes, supported by data, to the state commission and other counties along the Highway 5 corridor.

Supporting details and discussion

Turett described dividing the Mendocino National Forest into three monitoring sections and said this year the group will work in "Grindstone South," covering an estimated 250 to 400 square miles in parts of Colusa, Glenn and Tehama counties and extending toward Shasta. He said past work, including a study completed around 2014, implicated black bears in high rates of fawn loss and that those losses can depress recruitment for an entire age class.

Commissioners asked about chronic wasting disease; Turett replied that wasting disease is not present in their study area yet. He described a range of management tools the group has proposed to California Fish and Wildlife, including targeted seasons, extra tags and use of USDA resources where science supports a localized surplus removal.

On hounds and bear control, Turett said targeted hunting with dogs is an effective tool. "Hands down. Hands down, bar none, is dogs because they know where the bears are," he said, adding that targeted removals would aim at specific age classes or problem individuals identified by the data.

Turett acknowledged political and hunter concerns around possible changes such as converting some areas to draw‑only tags but said the group intends to follow the science: "whatever that science says, that's what we're gonna do." He described early outreach to Tehama, Glenn, Colusa and Lake counties and said the next step is stakeholder briefings and presenting a unified proposal to the state commission if partners agree.

Next steps and follow-up

Turett offered to return for a future commission meeting with additional information and distributed pamphlets describing the monitoring project and the stakeholder initiative. Commissioners asked staff to circulate contact details for the Pacific Council materials referenced later in the meeting; they did not take a formal vote on any regulatory recommendation during the session.

Ending

The monitoring group framed its initiative as a data‑first effort: collect local baseline information, work with state biologists, assemble stakeholders and then seek regulatory change where the evidence supports it. Turett said the association will continue fieldwork and stakeholder outreach and will share preliminary findings with commissioners in coming months.