BISMARCK, N.D.—Decisions on how to reduce bloated elk herds at national parks in North Dakota and South Dakota are not likely to come until next year.
The National Park Service says it does not expect to release its preferred plan for North Dakota’s Theodore Roosevelt National Park until December, nearly a year later than anticipated, pushing a public comment period and a final decision into 2009.
South Dakota’s Wind Cave National Park, which also is working on a plan to reduce elk overpopulation, is farther along in the process than the North Dakota park but named its preferred option about four months later than anticipated, Park Superintendent Vidal Davila said. The public comment process is continuing.
One reason for the delays is the sheer length of the draft environmental statements that contain the Park Service’s “preferred alternative.” Wind Cave’s document, which was released in late June, was just short of 400 pages. The one for the Theodore Roosevelt park might reach 500.
“It just takes a long time to get all of the writing finalized,” Theodore Roosevelt Superintendent Valerie Naylor said. “It’s a long and very detailed document … we want to make sure it’s perfect before it’s released to the public.”
Elk have multiplied rapidly in the two parks, where hunting is not allowed. The parks cannot capture and ship out the surplus elk because of the threat of chronic wasting disease. The disease has been documented in South Dakota but not North Dakota.
Both parks, along with Rocky Mountain National Park in Colorado, have been working on new elk management plans for years.
Rocky Mountain has wrapped up the process. Its new plan includes the use of Park Service employees and volunteers to cull the herd, along with other measures, including birth control for some female elk.
Wind Cave’s preferred plan is to install boundary fence gates that would keep elk out of the park during hunting season, enabling hunters to legally shoot the animals outside the park.
“During the season, when the first shot is heard, (elk) do come into the park,” Davila said.
Wind Cave has decided against allowing hunting inside its boundaries.
The Theodore Roosevelt National Park began considering the use of volunteer shooters only after pressure last year from U.S. senators and state wildlife officials in North Dakota and Colorado.
Adding that option factored into the first delay of the draft environmental statement, which had been anticipated in late February. A park official around that time estimated a new release date of early August. Naylor said Thursday that has been pushed back until late in the year.
A 60-day comment period with public meetings will follow, with a final record of decision coming sometime after that.
“It depends on the comments,” Naylor said. “If there are only six comments, it will go much faster than if there are 600.”
Wind Cave’s 60-day comment period is to end Aug. 18. Davila said Thursday that the park had received fewer than a dozen comments and that turnout at its public meetings around South Dakota was light.
The elk issue is arguably more contentious in North Dakota, where elk that escape the park’s fenced boundaries have caused headaches for ranchers and where public officials have been pressuring the Park Service to consider the use of volunteer shooters. At one point, the state Game and Fish Department refused to participate in the park’s new management process because of the dispute.
Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne, during a visit to western North Dakota earlier this week, said he would support using “the talent and skills of local citizenry” to help thin the elk population at Theodore Roosevelt.
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