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2/21/08 Wolf advocates to sue RMNP |
Wolf advocates say predators, not sharpshooters are best for elk control and will sue RMNP to prove their case.
By Bill Scanlon of the Rocky Mountain News
Tuesday, February 19, 2008
A wolf-advocacy group said Monday it will sue Rocky Mountain National Park over its decision to hire sharpshooters to kill up to 200 elk a year at the park as a way to handle overpopulation.
The decision to use the sharpshooters was made in December but signed Friday, Feb. 15th, 2008 by Mike Snyder, intermountain director for the National Park Service.
A Wild Earth Guardians officer said Monday that federal officials didn't take a fair look at introducing wolves to the park as an alternate way to keep the elk population down.
Elk - there are an estimated 2,000 in the park - are destroying aspen and willows in large stretches on the eastern part of the Continental Divide, threatening to decimate large areas of the riverbank ecosystem. The Park Service says shooting elk will be part of a plan that also includes fences, restoring trees and redistributing the elk.
No predators a problem
But Rob Edward, director for carnivore recovery for the Santa Fe-based WildEarth Guardians, said 30 or 40 wolves could accomplish the same goals in a more natural way.
"We need to have enough wolves in the park that they're having an effect on the movement of elk through the landscape," Edward said. That would mean two or three packs, he said.
A wolf needs 71/2 pounds of meat a day, so each pack likely would take down an elk every three days, Edward said. "The problem isn't so much that there are too many elk in the park but that there are no predators forcing them to move throughout the park", he said.
With no incentive to move, the elk chew the aspen and willows down to the roots, wiping out entire stretches of the trees that are essential to the ecosystem. Wolves would get the elk moving from one willow patch to another.
Edward said the White House is hurting the cause of wolves on two fronts. In the areas where they've been reintroduced and are thriving, the Bush administration wants to take them off the endangered species list.
On the other hand, the administration is dragging its feet on reintroducing wolves to areas where they formerly ranged, such as Rocky Mountain National Park, he said.
Reassurances on wolves
Humans need not fear wolves if they were to be introduced to the park, Edward said, noting that there is no known case of a wild wolf killing a human in Colorado.
There are historical cases of wolves downing humans in Europe - but usually only in extreme conditions such as when the bubonic plague gave wolves a taste for human corpses.
Yellowstone National Park reintroduced wolves in 1995. A decade later there are probably hundreds of wolves there, and the willows are dramatically healthier, he said.
Gradual culling planned
Two polls conducted by the forerunner organization of WildEarth Guardians, Sinapu, found that from two-thirds to three-quarters of Coloradans support wolf re-introduction, Edward said.
National Park Service officials haven't ruled out introducing wolves to the park as a way to deal with the problem, they said, but that will not be among the first solutions tried.
They said the state of Colorado doesn't support re-introduction of wolves "at this time."
The current plan relies on the gradual shooting of elk rather than intense culling, as had been proposed in one of the draft plans, Park officials noted.
Healthy carcasses of the downed elk would be donated to groups in need.
Large winter storms the past few years have killed some of the elk, reducing their population from the 2001 peak, so there likely isn't an immediate need to shoot many of the animals.
The National Park Service plan also calls for testing live elk for chronic wasting disease.
In the first year, up to 120 female elk would be captured, be tested for the disease and be given a fertility-control treatment. Biologists hope they'll learn new and better ways to deal with CWD by testing the female elk.
Any elk that tested positive for CWD - a relative to mad cow disease - would be killed and removed.
The final plan "balances the most important management issues with the many differing viewpoints expressed," said Park Service Superintendent Vaughn Baker. It will be the guideline for managing elk for the next 20 years.
A young bull elk hiding out from the hired guns on Pole Hil Road, nearby Estes Park
The Record of Decision (ROD) for the Final Elk and Vegetation Management Plan at Rocky Mountain National Park was signed February 15, 2008 by Mike Snyder, Intermountain Regional Director for the National Park Service. Park staff can now begin working on implementing the 20 year plan.
The initial phase of the preferred alternative relies on a variety of conservation tools including fencing, redistribution, vegetation restoration and lethal reduction (culling) of elk. In future years, the park will, using adaptive management principles, re-evaluate opportunities to use wolves or fertility control agents (the immuno-suppressant Gonacon) as additional tools. The Record of Decision can be accessed through the link above or by clicking below.
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