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Annual Elk Hunt Scheduled to Begin in Grand Teton National Park Oct 10

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Grand Teton National Park's elk hunt is scheduled to begin this coming Saturday, Oct. 10. NPS photo.

Hunters -- temporarily deputized as park rangers -- will descend on portions of Grand Teton National Park this coming weekend with hopes of reducing the park's elk population.

This is not a new hunt. Back in 1950, when the park's enabling legislation passed Congress, the hunt was provided for -- when necessary -- to help manage Grand Teton's elk population. Park officials say the current elk population is above the goal of 11,000 animals, and so the hunt will begin on Saturday, October 10.

The elk reduction program utilizes Wyoming-licensed hunters that apply for and receive limited quota permits in hunt areas #75 and #79. Under the guidelines of the hunt, each hunter who lands a permit can take any elk he or she wishes. A map showing specific park locations open to hunters participating in the elk reduction program is available at the Craig Thomas Discovery and Visitor Center in Moose, Wyoming.

As a part of their special use permit—and as an added safety measure—each participant receives a strong, proactive message alerting them to the presence of grizzly bears throughout the authorized hunt zones, the park notes. In addition, hunters are required to carry bear pepper spray as a non-lethal deterrent for use during potential bear encounters. Hunters are also advised not to leave a carcass unattended and to remove their harvested elk as soon as possible.

Each fall, park rangers strictly monitor and patrol the elk reduction areas located within the park to ensure compliance with rules and regulations associated with this wildlife management program.

According to a park release, the recent illegal killing of grizzly bear #615 by a hunter in the Ditch Creek area east of Grand Teton makes a compelling case for hunters to carry bear spray and be alert while in the field. Scientific studies indicate that bear spray is more effective than bullets in defusing a potentially life-threatening, bear-human encounter; bear spray provides more effective protection for the hunter as well as the bear, states the release.

Based on his extensive research, bear biologist Dr. Stephen Herrero has concluded that the chances of a person incurring serious injury from a charging grizzly significantly increases when bullets are fired versus when bear spray is used as a defense, said the park.

According to the park:

Bears and other scavengers throughout the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem (GYE) have learned to seek out and feed on gut piles and other hunter-related carrion during the fall season. This represents an important, highly nutritious food source to these animals, and it can create circumstances when bears aggressively defend carcasses and gut piles. Hunters and other park visitors should keep in mind that dozens of grizzlies use the park regularly and may be encountered anywhere and anytime. All necessary precautions for recreating in bear country need to be strictly followed, particularly those that apply to hunters.

The Conservation Strategy for Grizzly Bears in the GYE guides the continuing efforts by land and wildlife managers to conserve bear habitat and minimize bear-human conflicts through education and compliance with appropriate regulations, including those related to keeping a safe distance when viewing bears. To ensure a healthy grizzly bear population, every effort is made to educate park visitors, concessioner employees, local residents and hunters about living and recreating responsibly in bear country.

Rangers will continue to monitor park wildlife and educate all users about their personal responsibility for maintaining a safe environment—for their own health, as well as for the welfare of the animals.

Comments

Marshall -

I haven't checked into this, so I'm just shooting from the hip (an appropriate analogy for this topic), but I think it's likely the process of "deputizing" the hunters may have originated in an attempt to avoid setting a precedent in allowing "sport hunting" in a national park. If the hunters are "deputized," they're functioning in an "official" capacity as part of the park's wildlife management program. It's a fine line, but perhaps an important one in our political and legal system. As pointed out above, the process also gives the park the opportunity to ensure participants in the hunt receive a proper briefing on guidelines for the hunt.


Too bad those making comments don't know the real truth about wolves. They DO NOT seek out the very old, sick or weak. In fact wolves will kill just about any elk they can find but prefer calves and cows. They have created an unhealthy herd balance of very few calves, with some areas reporting a less than 10% attachment rate (10 calves per 100 surviving their 1st year). Hunter sucecss onlarge bulls doesn't compare to the chaos that wolves are bringing to elk herd population dynamics. Wolves are the most wasteful predator in North America, killing for sport, not necessarily to survive. (e.g. on August 21 near Dillon, MT, a group of wolves killed 120 sheep in a single night - Hmmm, I guess they were really hungry huh?) Take a look at http://www.saveelk.com/ if you want to know the dirty truth about wolves. Graphic yes, but the truth can be ugly.

A Montana State University study showed that elk populations in Yellowstone's Northern Range have dropped 67% since wolf introductions (~18,000 to 6,500). A USGS study determined 3.05 elk killed per wolf, or 36 elk per year (again, they don't eat nearly everything they kill). With the ~2,000 wolves in the West, that equals 72,000 elk per year. Maybe if everyone that loved wolves were forced to watch a wolf partially eat a still alive elk or deer they might think differently, but...


Elk Lover,

We look forward to your support on Wyoming (and increasingly Montana's) needless testing of elk for brucellosis, especially the capture and release program in Wyoming.

Or, is the only danger you perceive to elk wolf predation? Are you more an elk lover or a wolf hater? If the former, please consider the ways that the state governments are intruding on elk all in the name of protecting the livestock industry.

Jim Macdonald
The Magic of Yellowstone
Yellowstone Newspaper
Jim's Eclectic World


"Are you more an elk lover or a wolf hater?"

I think that is self-evident from the post.

All but the sport hunter celebrate the reduction of the massive overpopulation of elk in the northern range.


Jim,

Thanks for the links. I have perused your writings, but will spend some additional time doing so. Some good stuff.

I am much more of an elk lover, although my dislike for wolves is pretty deep these days. I provided public comment prior to the re-introduction of wolves IN FAVOR of re-introduction. However, even though we are 3-4 times the agreed upon number of wolves, the environmentalists continue to waste taxpayer dollars by filing legal actions against pulling wolves from the endangered species list. All other games species, including predators, can be effectively managed under the north american model of wildlife management, which includes hunting, so why not the wolf?


Ms. Anonymous,

Sport Hunter? Why does it always go to that? Lack of education on someone's part I guess.

Over 80% of our Division of Wildlife budget is paid for by hunters here in CO, so without hunters, wildlife in CO would be in the shitter. We (Hunter/conservationists) have paid to help reintroduce multiple species in every US state. Most hunters are not the redneck, tobacco chewing lot of cartoons, but professionals that actually might respect the animals we hunt much more than someone who doesn't and get's their protein from the supermarket.

I have personally helped to raise over $6M in the last 5 years to support conservation activities here in Colorado. Money that is spent in on-the-ground activities such as habitat enhancement, conservation easement acquisition, public/private land exchanges/purchases (land put into the public domain), wildlife education and others. What tangiable actions have you taken for widlife?


Elk Lover, Your post reflects an extreme dislike for wolves. Of course wolves do not kill only sick and diseased prey. Like all natural predators, they are opportunistic and do not check a prey's age or medical records before culling them. However, on average weaker and injured animals are more likely to be taken. In most of North America wolves were an integral part of healthy ecosystems long before Europeans arrived. Insofar as excessive kills of domestic sheep, you might want to check the history of how humans with firearms literally decimated hundreds of thousands of buffalo for "sport" and caused the extinction of countless species of animals. I have watched wolves hunt and take caribou and moose and seen wolves injured in the process. Wolves are part of nature, and nature doesn't operate according to human moral code.


In any event Elk Lover, I've always been curious why these so called pro elk groups almost never have anything to say about incursions by the livestock industry on elk. Most people know about what the industry has done to keep buffalo out of the wild, but most don't know that the livestock industry in it's war on brucellosis identify elk as a problem and would like to see all brucellosis in elk eliminated as well - that means only one thing ultimately, completely destroying all the elk herds. That's the only way to get rid of brucellosis in Greater Yellowstone. What would you think about that? And, if it offends you like it offends me, what do you plan on doing for elk in this regards? I suspect the livestock industry has far more power to eradicate elk than wolves ultimately do; they're doing quite a number on buffalo already.

Jim Macdonald
The Magic of Yellowstone
Yellowstone Newspaper
Jim's Eclectic World


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