For years, it’s been abundantly clear that something has to be done about the burgeoning Rocky Mountain National Park elk population. There are far more elk in and around the park than the area can support and the animals are suffering for it. As a result, they’re damaging the ecosystem and getting into all sorts of trouble in nearby towns.
That much everyone agrees on. How to bring the herd to a manageable size is a topic that has generated some controversy in recent weeks.
Some members of the Colorado Wildlife Commission have been campaigning loudly for managed public hunts in the popular national park. The sale of elk hunting permits would generate revenue instead of costing money and would be popular.
Bruce McCloskey, director of the Colorado Division of Wildlife, said allowing hunters to thin the herd is a proven method of wildlife management.
“We’ve been doing this for a hundred years in this state,” he said.
We think public hunts in the park are unwise for several reasons. Rocky Mountain National Park is heavily used, full of hikers in the summer and snowshoers in the winter. Allowing public hunting, no matter how controlled, could put visitors at risk. Closing the park, in whole or part, would be no guarantee that people wouldn’t stumble into a restricted area.
Furthermore, what kind of “hunt” would it be? Park elk have little fear of humans and probably wouldn’t even run from a hunter. That’s not exactly what you’d call sporting.
And you can imagine the horror of visitors who inadvertently came upon a hunt in progress, or saw hunters leaving the park with a dead elk strapped on the roof. People come to the park looking for harmony with nature, not to see a slaughter in progress.
National Park Service personnel who are putting together a final report on the elk problem, due in June, don’t want a public hunt but have listed professional culling as an option. That’s a wise view, and we hope a public hunt stays off the table.
A reduction of the 3,000-elk herd is necessary, and it’s likely that anywhere from 900 to 1,800 will have to be killed to bring the herd to a sustainable size. That reduction ought to be done by trained personnel who are looking to remove the weakest and sickest animals from the herd, and not private hunters looking for a kill.
