Estes Park – Annie, a 450-pound elk, slowly raises her left front hoof and places it in Lee Kemper’s right hand.
She then nuzzles Kemper’s mouth and gently pulls out the carrot sticks dangling from his lips.
Annie couldn’t survive anywhere else but Kemper’s 8-acre llama ranch, say many of the folks in this resort town at the mouth of Rocky Mountain National Park.
And they don’t like the state trying to take Annie, her calf and the calf’s offspring away from Kemper for a life in the wild. Hundreds have written letters supporting Kemper and have lobbied the Colorado Division of Wildlife and Gov. Bill Owens.
“Annie will die of a broken heart if separated from the Kempers,” neighbor Zac Henderson said in a letter to Owens.
State law forbids private citizens from keeping wild animals for fear they could pose a danger to people and spread disease. Kemper, who has cared for 9-year-old Annie since she was 5 days old, admits he may be fighting a losing battle to keep his elk family intact.
“All the state wants to do is make money off them for hunting,” said Kemper, who has helped rehabilitate injured wild animals in Estes Park. “Annie doesn’t need to go anywhere but here.”
But that’s not what state wildlife officials believe.
“An elk not getting what it wants from humans could go after them or accidentally knock them down,” said Colorado Division of Wildlife spokesman Tyler Baskfield. “And of course, chronic wasting disease in deer and elk is a big concern.”
Also, keeping a wild elk is robbing others of the joy of seeing them in the natural habitat, Baskfield said.
But Kemper says Annie is no prisoner, and neither is her daughter, Hannah, nor the younger calf, Destiny. The three can come and go as they please, he said, but they prefer to stay under the watchful eye of Iryieman, a male llama who helped raise all three.
When Annie was a calf, she was spotted by a passer-by in a field of coyotes. She was taken for treatment to a veterinarian, who then turned her over to Kemper.
Kemper fed Annie bottles of goat’s milk day and night. Over time, the two formed a tight bond, and soon she was following Kemper wherever he went.
Kemper also nursed her back to health whenever she got sick. In fact, the attention he gives to the elks may have been what got him in trouble. He took Destiny to Colorado State University’s veterinary hospital to repair her rectum, which may have alerted the Division of Wildlife to the elk family at his ranch.
Some neighbors also raised concerns, prompting an investigation by the state.
Kemper claims the DOW plans to shoot the elk, which officials deny. The agency is negotiating with Kemper – talks that may allow Annie to remain, while gradually re-introducing the younger elk to the wild, said Dawn Taylor Owens, spokeswoman for the Colorado Department of Natural Resources.
Estes Park Mayor John Baudek said he hoped a compromise can be reached.
“Given the history of this elk (Annie), it would seem that returning her to the wild is not an option,” Baudek recently told the DOW. “And transferring her to a facility such as CSU doesn’t sound any better than simply leaving her in the neighborhood where she has spent the last several years.”
Staff writer Monte Whaley can be reached at 720-929-0907 or mwhaley@denverpost.com.
