On a recent Monday, as I was hiking near treeline in a quiet part of Rocky Mountain National Park, I rounded a corner to see a gigantic bull elk. He hadn’t seen me, but ran down the open hillside to a creek, where he pawed at the water and thrashed at it with his antlers, sending up silver curves of droplets and a splashing sound through the small valley. He then slowed to drink.
As I grabbed my camera and clicked off a couple of shots, I noticed he wasn’t alone. On the trail ahead of me were two more bulls, smaller than the first, looking intently in my direction. I snapped a couple more shots then put the camera away, to spare the elk and me its artificial clicking sound and to let me fully enjoy the moment.
While the two bulls and I continued to gaze at each other, another poked its head around a bend in the trail that was between us, only 30 feet away. He halted, and commenced staring at me. After a moment, I saw a flicker of an expression that I recognized from home in D.C. Suddenly, I got it—although there was grass around me, I was blocking the trail. His trail.
Slowly, I backed up to a cluster of trees behind and to my right. The elk continued to stare for a few more minutes, then looked away and moved into the evergreens to the left, dropping his head and grazing quietly.
Soon, another face topped by antlers appeared at the trail’s bend, and the same dance ensued. One by one, five bull elk, one a half-grown calf, stood at the trail’s bend and regarded me for several minutes each before stepping into the trees behind the leader. Never before had I such a strong feeling that I had walked uninvited into someone’s living room. Only the granddaddy failed to appear at the bend; he lay down in the cool stream for a long soak, his giant antlers poking above the tundra.
After the entire inspection team slipped into the trees, the largest bull stopped plucking grass, lifted his head and stared at me again. I could clearly see his broad, bony face and the fierce white whiskers under his chin, and I could sense his power. He had about him the look of lawlessness, of energy and defiance. After a long spell of examining me, he grunted. I replied quietly, “It’s okay,” and I showed him my palms, by then holding onto my extended trekking poles that, with my wits and the trees, were my only defense should he turn angry.
And immediately he dismissed me, going back to his breakfast and wandering after the herd. Perhaps he was wondering why there were tears coursing down the face of this strange animal with the odd red-and-black fur, the black square eyes and the blue humped back. They were tears of inexplicable emotions upon seeing such beautiful wild creatures up close, but surely they couldn't appreciate that.
I was wondering how to explain, without it sounding trite, the magnificence of these animals, how to put into words the size of them, bigger than any horse I’ve ever ridden, and how it felt to interact with them for those few moments, across the boundaries of species and worlds. How it felt, most importantly, to touch their wildness. I found it easy to pinpoint my sorrow that while these elk appear strong and free, they are vulnerable to changes in the climate, pollution and policy decisions being made by humans they will never see, and who will never see them.
As if on cue, two days later I received an action alert from the National Parks Conservation Association saying that the elk in North Dakota's Theodore Roosevelt National Park were too healthy in number, and that NPCA would like me to ask the Park Service, as a temporary measure, to cull the herd by gun while working for a long-term solution, which also involves hunting but on lands outside the park.
I understand that a strained ecosystem ultimately will result in pain for the elk and other species, and that we must address the issue. Yet I have to wonder if some of the other options originally proposed, or some other not fully explored options still are better for the elk, and even why we’re not considering a more natural approach of reintroducing predators.
The elk are overpopulated because human activities have thrown nature out of balance. This is not their fault; it is ours, and we are choosing to solve the problem by shooting them. It is one thing for an elk to be killed to feed a wolf or a mountain lion or a hungry human. It is another thing altogether for humans to choose killing that elk as the easiest solution to a human-induced problem. Is this truly the best solution for the elk? Or is it simply the one we like the best for reasons of politics, finances or convenience? Have we fully explored all alternatives that might allow us to solve this issue without sending in a small army? I don’t have all the answers, but I think about those bulls, and I want us to make these decisions with the greatest thought and consideration for them.
Back in Rocky Mountain National Park, after the group nonchalantly noshed and moved away and granddad steeped in his tub, I headed on to the summit of Mount Chiquita and the views of mountains for miles around. On my way back that afternoon, far below the place where I first had seen the elk, I spotted motion in the distance. There were three bulls grazing. The largest raised his head and looked toward me. I showed him my palm and waved. He dropped his head back to his forage, and I proceeded to my car and what we call civilization, reluctantly away from the wilderness.
Comments
To distill a whole bunch of research (google "ecology of fear" wolves sharks) into a couple of sentences:
Wolves in Yellowstone don't kill large numbers of elk, but the presence of wolves makes the elk stay away from the stream beds where they are more vulnerable to wolves. The per elk impacts on riparian willows (and thus beavers & trout) are greatly reduced. [William Ripple and several others.]
The same thing happens with sharks & dugongs, dolphins, seals, & maybe turtles in Shark Bay Australia: in seasons when the sharks are present, the dugongs & turtles stay away from the seagrass beds with the more nutritious seagrass species where they're vulnerable to sharks, and forage on the edges of beds near deeper water where they are safer but the seagrass is less nutritious. [Mike Heithaus & his students; I suspect there is some cool video on his website or maybe by searching Heithaus on youtube.]
Because they've moved to lower quality habitat away from streams more elk die of starvation (directly and indirectly) and fewer elk are born, so the population size of elk is reduced from what it would have been without wolves. But, for population dynamics, the alternative is a much larger population of elk, large enough to again increase death from starvation and reduce fecundity, and greatly impact the vegetation and the rest of the ecosystem in the process.
What I don't know about (and I think no one knows about) is what the elk response to wolves would be in Theodore Roosevelt NP: would the elk be chased out of the areas that are most sensitive to elk overgrazing & trampling, or do the areas where elk are most vulnerable to wolves not align with the most sensitive areas as they do in Yellowstone? Until we know that, introducing wolves might possibly make the elk impacts on the ecosystem worse instead of less.
I feel sorry for you buddy. You seem to think that we are on a level above nature and that we should be able to alter natural habbitats at will. This is the precise state of mind that has driven hundreds of species into extinction already. I don't know if you are aware of this but natural habbitats have existed without the help of mankind for billions of years before our arrival. The bureau of land managment has passed legislation that gives authority to park management to deal with these types of problems at a scientific level. Now when i say a scientific level I am reffering to biological and ecological research and solutions, not those who want to shoot up the countryside and continue to drive endangered species into extinction. Next time why don't you try doing a little research before you put your foot in your mouth.
This comment was edited. -- Ed.