# TR Elk solutions



## Hunter_58346 (May 22, 2003)

Park officials offer elk management options
John Odermann
Dickinson (N.D.) Press - 12/17/2008
Officials at Theodore Roosevelt National Park released a plan Wednesday offering four options for dealing with what is considered the overpopulation of elk in the park.

The options include having volunteers shoot the elk, euthanizing the animals, using sharpshooters to kill the elk (including government employees, contractors and other skilled volunteers) or encouraging hunting opportunities outside park boundaries.

Park officials presented the Draft Elk Management/Environmental Impact Statement after almost three years of discussion and data gathering, which often included disagreement between state and federal entities.

Sen. Byron Dorgan, D-N.D. has pushed for the use of volunteers for elk management for nearly two years and said in a press release Wednesday the EIS makes it clear that is an acceptable method.

"It is unbelievable to me that the National Park Service would even consider saddling taxpayers with a huge bill to hire federal sharpshooters to cull the elk herd and ignore the opportunity to use qualified North Dakota hunters free of charge," he said.

The Game and Fish Department hasn't been able to fully review the plans and would not comment on specifics Wednesday.

Elk, a species native to North Dakota, were wiped out by overhunting, and the park in 1985 reintroduced 47 of the animals. With no natural predators and an abundance of food, the elk population expanded to about 900. The target population is 400.

The park transported the elk to other federal, state and tribal land to manage the population in the past. But the park stopped the practice because of concerns over spreading chronic wasting disease, a neurological disease that affects elk and other members of the deer family.

Park Superintendent Valerie Naylor said CWD testing is an important secondary goal of the plan.

"Any alternative that we implement we would do testing for chronic wasting disease," she said. "We just want that information anyways and so does the Game and Fish."

NDGF still reviewing

Game and Fish Department Director Terry Steinwand and Wildlife Division Chief Randy Kreil said the department has not been able to fully review the 400-page document because the Park Service just gave them copies Wednesday. It may be after the first of the year before they "really delve into it much," Steinwand said.

Game and Fish was part of the initial EIS process, but removed itself last year because it felt the Park Service was not taking its suggestions seriously, Steinwand said. The department since has re-engaged in the process.

The Park Service considered seven alternatives, and Game and Fish suggested an eighth, which would have included the use of certified volunteer sharpshooters from the public, which was not considered in the final report.

One of the considered alternatives, which was not chosen for the final EIS, included no action.

Steinwand said if the EIS, upon review, is how it was described to them in November he will be disappointed.

"We've never said that one single technique or one single option is what it's going to take," Steinwand said. "It's probably going to take a number of options, two or more, but we wanted certified volunteers from the public to be a part of that."

Though the target population is 400, because of the possible reproduction rate the herd could be trimmed to about 200, Naylor said.

"Our goal is to manipulate the population as little as possible," she said. "If we do something that's major, we would like to just do it once and then take the population to a level where we don't have to do much to maintain it there."

Naylor said the Park Service won't select a preferred alternative until after the public comment period.

Public meetings are not yet scheduled, but Naylor said there will be meetings in Bismarck, Dickinson, Fargo and Medora, N.D., during the comment period, which runs through March 19.


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