Thursday, October 15, 2009
Bill Cochran's Outdoors: Elk restoration on fast track in Virginia
Bill Cochran is a Roanoke Times outdoors columnist.
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A proposed moratorium on shooting elk in Virginia is expected to receive final approval by the board of the Department of Game and Inland Fisheries when it meets in Richmond Oct. 22.
Although the effective date was not part of the proposal -- that would have been nice -- look for it to be Friday, Oct. 23, which is as soon as possible.
You get the idea that the board has this subject on the fast track because the agency generally frowns on establishing hunting regulations outside its normal regulatory cycle, which will be the case for this proposal.
For one thing, a mid-stream change renders obsolete the hunting law digest booklet. The current one, which has an end date of June, 2010, states: “Elk of either sex, antlered or antlerless, may be taken during any open deer season using the weapons legal for deer during that season.”
That means elk hunting already is underway, having become legal when the bow/crossbow season opened Oct. 3. It stands to run 20 days then close, and you have to wonder how judges will handle matters when a hunter is brought into their courts having unknowingly or purposely shot an elk past Oct. 22.
The easy thing would have been to include the proposal in the standard regulation cycle, which already is under way for next year. It would have given everyone more opportunities to express their opinion on this important issue and would have avoided a flaw in the hunting law digest.
But the DGIF board recently has had its eye across the border into Kentucky where stockings of 1,500 elk between 1997 and 2002 have resulted in an amazing herd of more than 11,000 animals, one of the biggest in the nation.
David Allen, president and CEO of the Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation, says this herd “offers incredible hunting opportunities with legitimate chances to take world-class bulls.”
Then there is the money angle. Kentucky reaps about $400,000 from elk licenses and fees. Add to that a bundle of tourism money. These are funds that Virginia wildlife officials and citizens in far Southwest Virginia could put to good use.
All Virginia has in the way of elk is a few animals that have wandered across the border into the Old Dominion from the Kentucky stockings. That’s because Virginia wildlife officials took a different path on elk restoration. They considered Kentucky’s effort to transport elk from most any place it could get them as reckless gamble that brought with it a real potential of introducing diseases into the deer herd. Maybe even into domestic livestock. There also was concern over crop and property damage.
Restoration gave way to elimination when Virginia game officials gave hunters an opportunity to pop an elk anytime during the lengthy deer season. In short, hunters have been granted the opportunity to kill elk from early October to January.
As it turned out, the disease concern may have been overstated, or so it appears, but who could criticize DGIF for being cautions? You still can find wildlife biologists and hunters fearful of Chronic Wasting Disease. The Virginia Farm Bureau recently reinstated its concern about the potential of elk endangering livestock by transmitting tuberculosis, brucellosis, CWD and possibly foot and mouth disease. The bureau also raises the crop damage issue and said in a news release “imagine the damage they [elk] could cause in a [vehicle] collision.”
Even so, who can fault DGIF for giving elk restoration a second look? These are magnificent animals.
During an Aug. 27 to Oct. 1 public input period, which collected about 250 comments on the DGIF proposal, participants overwhelmingly favored taking a serious look at elk restoration.
The proposed ban on shooting elk in Virginia is designed to take the target off the back of these animals while DGIF biologists come up with an elk plan, one that includes input from landowners, farmers and citizens in Southwest Virginia. That effort is in progress.
In reality, the elk aren’t exactly being harassed under the current open-season regulation. Officials say only seven have been reported killed the past five years. The big animals are far from pushovers.
The study could be accomplished without the ban and the disruptions it can create. Add to that, some sportsmen don’t like the idea of closing any hunting season out of fear that it could be difficult or impossible to crank back up. But there appears to be no stopping this proposal, so we can hope in the long run it will turn out to be a good one.
