Many Die or Are Killed by Hunters When They Seek Food Outside the Park : Expanded Winter Range Called Vital to Yellowstone Elk, Bison

Animal lovers and others are up in arms over the high number of elk deaths in Yellowstone National Park and the hunting of bison from the park this winter, and officials say the controversy shows that these species need more space for winter habitats.

Park superintendent Bob Barbee said that more elk than usual died this winter, but that was to be expected after several mild winters allowed the herd to expand. Hunters are allowed to shoot bison that cross the park’s northern border into Montana, but Barbee said that does not threaten the park’s herd.

Barbee acknowledged that obtaining additional winter habitat outside the park’s boundaries is vital to the successful management of the large herds that migrate to lower elevations, where food is easier to get during winter snows.

Hunt Called Massacre

Wayne Pacelle, director of the Fund for Animals, called the bison hunting an “unprecedented massacre.” He said the National Park Service is failing in its duty to protect the animals, even though the hunting occurs outside the park.

“These animals are accustomed to a non-threatening, non-harmful human presence,” he said, “and they’re simply like dairy cows being shot.”

The controversy, experts say, is a symptom of the need for long-term wildlife management policies that recognize that the animals’ habitat cannot be limited to the 2.2 million acres inside the park.

Experts estimate that about 32,000 elk summer in the park and then break up into about nine herds to seek out winter ranges. Similarly, about 2,750 bison spend the summer in the park and then disperse into three herds for winter grazing.

Winter Habitat Shrinks

Barbee said the park has adequate summer habitat to sustain as many as 100,000 elk. The problem is winter habitat, which has shrunk in recent years because of development on lands surrounding the park and the effects of two years of drought and last summer’s wildfires.

Drought and development have had more impact than the fires, which damaged only about 9% of the sage and grasslands that help to feed the park’s northern elk and bison herds, Barbee said.

There were an estimated 20,000 elk in the northern region of the park at the beginning of the winter. Barbee said that more than half the herd left the park in search of food, and 2,300 of them were taken during the winter hunting season.

During a normal winter, about 10% of the oldest and weakest elk die. The superintendent said that mortality rate has already been exceeded in the northern herd this year.

13% of Elk Dead

“We’ve had probably 10% to 13% (die) already, and maybe there’ll be another 5%, but nobody knows,” Barbee said. “The weather is starting to turn (warmer) now, so we don’t know really what the final winter kill will be.”

Yellowstone spokeswoman Joan Anzelmo said that less is known about the park’s other wildlife populations, but they are all considered to be healthy.

Anzelmo said more accurate estimates of the winter mortality in all species will be available after aerial surveys are conducted this month.

Tory Taylor, president of the Wyoming Wildlife Federation, said that his group is not entirely comfortable with the management of the park’s wildlife, but this winter’s problems are not as serious as some contend.

“So many people attribute (the problems) to bad management or the forest fires, which I just don’t feel is the case at all,” he said. “It’s very complex to manage, and, as far as the federation goes, we don’t think the herds are in danger.”

Bison are hardy animals that can withstand a hard winter , but Montana hunters and game wardens have killed 557 of the estimated 900 animals in the northern herd this winter.

Montana Fears Brucellosis

The Montana Department of Fish, Wildlife and Parks allows hunters to kill any bison that strays out of the park because they could carry brucellosis to domestic cattle. The disease causes cows to abort their calves, and an infected herd usually must be sold for slaughter at a discounted price.

The Fund for Animals’ Pacelle said it has never been proved that buffalo can transmit the disease to cattle in the wild, but veterinarians say the risk is well documented.

“Those crutches have been shot from underneath them,” Wyoming state Veterinarian N. R. Swanson said of animal protectionists’ arguments. “It has been proven very definitely that it can be transmitted from one species to another.”

Barbee said the controversy is understandable, but that wildlife management must be based on scientific data rather than emotions.

Animals ‘Don’t Live Forever’

“Nobody enjoys seeing animals perish, but they do die. They don’t live forever, and, when they go, they usually go in the winter. The great predator is winter in this world around here,” he said.

Populations of ungulates--hoofed mammals such as elk and bison--historically build to the maximum limits the range available to them allows, and then fall drastically.

With several mild winters recently, the populations of Yellowstone elk and bison have been at their highest in 20 years.

“We’ve had six or seven years of buildup in numbers, and animals that would have normally died have made it from winter to winter,” Barbee said. “We’re now finding a lot of these animals that are dying have teeth that are worn down to their gums. They’re ready to go.”

Kill Benefits Bears

He noted also that the plentiful elk carcasses will be a boon to hungry grizzly bears emerging from hibernation in the early spring, along with other predators, including coyotes, golden and bald eagles, magpies and ravens.

‘Barroom biology doesn’t make it,” Barbee said, adding that more scientific research is needed before decisions can be made about the size of the wildlife populations the park can support.

He said 41 such studies are under way.

Although the controversy causes problems, Barbee said, the park realizes that Yellowstone is “a public trust.”

“The good news is people care, and so do we.”

Barbee notes that, although there is no consensus even among conservation groups on the ideal size for the herd of northern elk, there is agreement on the need for additional winter habitat.

Two conservation groups are actively pursuing expanded habitat programs with support from the National Park Service and others.

The Wilderness Society has asked Congress to appropriate $40,000 for a study on obtaining additional habitat. The Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation is seeking conservation easements and other options to expand the Yellowstone elks’ northern range.

Mike Scott, the Wilderness Society’s northern Rocky Mountain regional director, said that the large number of elk deaths this winter shows the growing disparity between the sizes of the summer and winter ranges for the animals.

Long-Range Survival

“If we are to ensure long-range survival of viable populations, we’re going to have to do something about winter range.”

Superintendent Barbee said, “If we could go back and re-do the boundaries for these parks, the only rational way to do it would be not to make nice rectangles but to try to follow along these habitat components.”

Barbee said National Park Service experts agree that there are about 57,000 acres of public and private land outside the park’s boundary that are part of critical winter range. Although more than half of that acreage is public land, about 6,500 acres are on heavily developed private land that is not available for wildlife habitat.

The rest, he said, could be obtained through options, such as leasing conservation easements.

Opposes Feeding Elk

Alston Chase, author of the book “Playing God in Yellowstone,” which criticized Park Service management, said that, although the ideal herd size has not been determined, it is certain that the current populations are far too large. He said that adding winter habitat or feeding the elk, as some are doing, will only exacerbate the problem.

“The theory is (that) the populations will increase until they reach the limits of their food supply and then die off,” he said.

“What we are seeing is the inevitable consequences of that official policy,” he said, referring to the natural regulation policy introduced in 1968 by the National Park Service.

“The real tragedy is what the animals have already done to the park. They are eating themselves out of house and home and destroying a lot of range on which they and other animals depend.”

Before the natural regulation policy, officials estimated that there were about 3,000 elk in the northern herd and about 400 bison in the entire park, a fraction of current populations.

But Chase said he believes even 3,000 is too many elk.

Barbee, in his sixth year as park superintendent, disagrees.

Compromise Needed

“We’ve never had some sort of inflexible, naive pre-Columbian notion that we could keep everything like it was 2,000 or 1,000 years ago,” Barbee said. “You have to compromise in a realistic, reasonable and rational manner.”

Louisa Wilcox, program director of the Greater Yellowstone Coalition, said that this winter’s problems are indications that wildlife managers need to take a more long-term and broad-based approach to their policies.

“In no way does it jeopardize the herds, but the public furor meant that we finally got the agencies to the table to talk about long-term management policies,” Wilcox said.