Wildlife and Public Access: Maintaining Wild, Roaming Elk
Montana has a significant and valuable population of elk, broadly enjoyed by wildlife enthusiasts and hunters.
Brucellosis, a disease that causes cattle to abort a fetus, has been linked to elk and bison in the Greater Yellowstone Area. Scientific data shows that elk from Wyoming feed grounds may be causing the disease to spread throughout Montana's elk, albeit at low rates.
This has not stopped some lawmakers and special interest groups from calling for the test and slaughter of Montana's wild, free roaming population of elk, much as we do with what remains of the wild population of bison. Test and slaughter of Montana's elk would be extravagantly costly, as well as ineffective. Other states that have had pilot test and slaughter programs in place estimate that the cost of trapping, testing and then slaughtering elk is approximately over $1800 per animal. With over 150,000 elk in the Greater Yellowstone Area, spread out across multiple mountain ranges and valleys, the cost of trapping, testing and slaughtering these far ranging herds would likely double.
Montana's hunting community strongly opposes treating wildlife with such invasive and strident animal husbandry tactics (equating wildlife management to livestock husbandry in this instance). The Animal, Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) of the Department of Agriculture operates under rules dating back to the 1930's, creating a regulatory climate that has little in common with the modern agricultural reality of the 21st century. While APHIS is taking steps to update these rules and regulations, they still do not take in to account the reality of the elk feed grounds in Wyoming, or the migration of these wild elk as they intermingle with Montana's truly wild populations.
Currently, the Department of Livestock and Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks are working together to develop protocols and procedures to deal with elk and cattle intermingling. Other non-profits are working together to also develop public policy that both respects the public trust doctrine associated with wildlife management, and the agricultural industry which is suffering from these outdated rules and regulations.
Learn more, Montana Wildlife Federation, http://www.montanawildlife.com.
