Saturday, February 4, 2012
Animals The great elk debate
Posted by Max Brantley on Sat, Feb 4, 2012 at 6:41 AM
A Missouri TV station provides another report on the unhappiness in the Ozarks over a Game and Fish Commission-Forest Service plan to expand habitat for non-native elk. Tourists love them. Ranchers and many others, not so much.
Comments (11)
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The number 1 secter of business in Arkansas is agriculture but that includes people working from picking in the fields to selling produce in the market. The #2 sector is tourism and this is people making a decision about where and with whom they will spent some of their money and they have lots of choices. This brings a lot of outside money into the state and anything that affects how the state is seen by others (1957, idiots spouting stupidity, dumb laws, etc) impacts where people will decide to spend their money and we don't have a coastline and our mountains are what my mom (from Oregon) called foothills, so all we have to sell is the scenery and small town living as it used to be plus a Library and Museums in the center and the NW corner. That leaves a lot of the state that also needs to have tourists to keep their economy going.
If elk are part of that picture, have the hunts in the winter when few are going to come here unless familty and leave the picture scenes for those who visit in the spring, summer, and fall. This state doesn't advertize as heavily as TN, TX, MO, and OK (look in Southern Living) and we have BP adding LA to their Gulf Coast ads so a lot of people who come here learn of the state by friends who have been here and enjoyed themselves. This image is important to save and we continually try to shoot ourselves in the foot by dumb (and dumber) actions by our elected state representatives.
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There are plans to thin the East Fork Wilderness area (and Richland creek) so big elk can find grass.
I guess Warren Stephens and Jerry Jones want to hunt Elk here instead of those pesky trips to Colorado.
We don't need to clear-cut, burn, and spray herbicides over 38,000 acres for elk...
I'll post pictures of their efforts next time I'm up there. Lots of big hardwoods are biting the dust.
First off, KY3 is out of Springfield MO, not KY.. Missouri had its own failed experiment with Rocky Mountain Elk after the state auditor discovered huge cost overruns by the MO Dept. of Conservation. Here in Arkansas, we don't have that problem as the Game and Fish Commission have used the proceeds from leasing the States minerals on Wildlife Management Areas for gas extraction, fracking the bedrock of our state. As such, they had no problem spending 8.2 million dollars of revenue to purchase bottomland along lower Richland Creek to assure that our antlered guests from Colorado have plenty to eat. But why stop there with so much land available in teh Ozark National Forest?
Starting in 2007, logging, burning, herbicides, and bulldozing pasture for elk was approved via Phase 1 of the USFS Bearcat Hollow Project. If phase 2 is approved, the project will cover 38,000 acres in three counties.
The archeological record for elk in the Ozarks indicates no Western elk ever roamed here, and Eastern elk were few in number when and where they occurred. Archeological studies have found an occurrence of 16% remains for Eastern elk vs. 22% for bison and 96% for white tail deer in Ozark archeological sites.
Western Rocky Mountain elk cannot survive in the Ozarks without high quality pasture. The protein content of forage native to Arkansas is 2-4 times lower than preferred forage of Rocky Mountain elk. The public funds (tax dollars) dedicated to feeding and maintaining the introduced elk in Arkansas is already a huge amount. Since when did we start funding the Forest Service to clearcut and burn the native forest to support a non native species?
We could keep a small to moderate sized herd along the Buffalo River, have the tourist attraction and elk hunts for the well to do.. and the economic trickle down as needed in our poor county.. but the USFS plans for an ever expanding herd on the Ozark National Forest is an idea with little scientific basis, no detailed analysis, and little popular support.
Ozarkwaterpal, I agree with much of what you are saying. But the elk hunts in Arkansas are not for the well-to-do, and that is a plus in my opinion. One permit is auctioned each year (it was two permits in the first several years). The other permits are free and are given by random drawing at a festival in Jasper. Many of these permtis go to people of modest means.
Yes, let's leep a small to moderate size herd along the Buffalo River for a tourist attraction. There are too many in Boxley Valley now, where there is no hunting and people who live there are unhappy with so many of them. But the National Park Service for several years has blocked removal of some of these Boxley elk.
Olefishbait,
You are both right about the small to moderate herd, but when have you ever heard of a Federal or State Agency have a successful program that they didn't try to expand? Success = Growth in budgets, manpower and power and even maintenance are dependent upon growth of the services provided . . . to an agency head and funding from the legislature. IME.
ANYTHING that crosses private property without EXPRESS permission of the owner does not deserve to live.
Good God, have we sunk so low that the UN has now taken away all the PROPERTY RIGHTS in Newton County and given them to an animal which owes its very existence to SOCIALISM?
I see PETA'S hands in this.
Crusty-
By state law the wildlife therein belongs to the citizens of the state not the owner of the land on which they stand. The concept may have originated to allow the common person to enjoy some of what was previously only property of the king.
In the elk case perhaps the citizens may need to get more involved with managing their wildlife.
urocyon,
It should be noted that the USFS and AGFC began making plans to expand the elk onto the Ozark National Forest in private meetings with the Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation beginning in 2001. The public was neither notified, nor invited to these meetings. This was a violation of the Federal Advisory Committees Act, a fact that was clearly pointed out in formal comments to the USFS. The ability for citizens to be involved in managing our wildlife depends on having state and federal agencies willing to practice transparency in their planning, and respond appropriately to the concerns of the public.
waterpal-
I think the public is mostly uninformed on this issue in general. If they cared enough to light fires under their government representatives the USFS could be brought under control, probably.
Take away the national forest and the AGFC can do little harm.
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