Thursday, August 19, 2010
Bill Cochran's Outdoors: Elk debate leaves few people happy
Bill Cochran is a Roanoke Times outdoors columnist.
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You had to wonder if the people were talking about the same animal when friends and foes of restoring elk in Virginia filled the Department of Game and Inland Fisheries’ hearing room in Richmond Tuesday for a final round in a 10-month debate.
On one side were restoration advocates who called elk a magnificent creature, one that would be a boon to tourism by attracting hunters and wildlife watchers to an area of the state that could use the money. They pointed to the success Kentucky has enjoyed in building a heard of 10,000 animals that has attracted hunters all the way from California, even Hawaii.
How many times in a person’s life is there an opportunity to make a significant contribution toward the restoration of a native wildlife species, asked Caroline Frazier, a volunteer for the Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation.
The other side pictured elk as hell on hooves, a menace that could put farmers out of business by destroying their crops, wrecking their fences, introducing disease into their cattle, not to mention causing havoc on the highways. Some farmers were tearful as they expressed concerns; others were angry.
“I tell you point blank, I don’t intend to have elk on my farm,” said J. E. Fugate of Scott County. “Damn the elk; damn your committee,” he told the DGIF. “We just aren’t going to work with you.”
It was a debate that pitted farmers against hunters, Virginia Farm Bureau members against Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation members and county supervisors against county supervisors.
In what has been deemed the target restoration area -- Buchanan, Dickenson and Wise counties -- supervisors from Buchanan County supported elk stocking while supervisors in Dickenson and Wise opposed it.
“We are trying to help ourselves,” said W. J. Caudill, the administrator of Buchanan County, where there has been high unemployment and an exodus of residents. “We know elk will bring us extra dollars, extra jobs.”
The opposition was stiff enough for the DGIF staff of wildlife biologists to back off from its preferred option of stocking 200 elk in the three coalfields counties over a three-year period to establish a population of 1,200 animals.
Tuesday the staff switched to a “passive restoration option,” which is a do-little plan that involved no stocking, just the management of immigrant elk that cross the line from Kentucky.
But the DGIF ruling board, which makes the final decision, wasn’t willing to give in that much. The proposal it passed will establish a pilot program that calls for stocking not more than 75 elk in Buchanan County only. The goal is to establish a herd not to exceed 400 animals. Hunting could begin within four years of the last stocking. Twenty percent of the elk tags issued hunters would be held for residents of Buchanan County. A damage response team would be established with a goal of responding to elk complaints within 24 hours.
The board also passed a follow-up proposal to end elk hunting in Virginia during the restoration period. It is subject to a final vote Oct. 5. That means the game law digest, which has been printed, will say you can hunt elk when in reality that isn’t the case. An exception is the first few days of the bow season that occur before the regulation is effective. Judges like to throw those kinds of cases out of court.
The actions of the board made few people happy. Hunters wanted a more aggressive plan. Farmers wanted no elk -- period. Concentrating an elk restoration effort in one small county certainly has its drawbacks.
The DGIF staff proposal to back off and address the concerns of stakeholders with an eye toward winning them over for a larger restoration effort was a good one under the circumstances. Successful wildlife work always includes the successful management of people.
No one should expect tourism dollars to begin rolling into Buchanan County anytime soon. First, where do you find elk for stocking, and where do you get the money to buy them? They can cost as much as $1,000 per animal, wildlife officials say.
At this point, officials of the Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation have not stepped up with any money. One of their top people did say, “We will support whatever you decide to do.”
It most likely will be 2012 before things get started, and it is going to be an interesting ride.
