In early February, the National Park Service (NPS) began a cull of the elk population in Rocky Mountain National Park with the intention of killing up to 100 cow elk. The cull, combined with other vegetative management techniques, was authorized in the park's Elk and Vegetation Management Plan that was finalized in December 2007 with the Record of Decision released in February 2008. The park believes the cull will allow them to maintain a population at the high end of the natural range of variation, between 1,600 and 2,100 animals (600 to 800 within the park and 1,000 to 1,300 that winter outside of the park). Inside the park, as many as 200 animals could be culled per year over the 20-year duration of the plan, reports the Wildlife Management Institute.

The elk population within Rocky Mountain National Park reached a high point between 1997 and 2001 with estimates ranging between 2,800 and 3,500 individuals. While the population has declined somewhat from those high levels, the population continues to be less migratory and more concentrated resulting in significant impacts to the park's native vegetation, in particular aspen and willows. The change in habitat has affected numerous species including beaver, songbirds and butterflies as well as other plant species and the park's water table. In addition, the park has found cases of chronic wasting disease within the population and residents of the park's gateway community, Estes Park, have seen increased property damage.

"The impacts to the habitat have been well documented and what has been consistent is that we have agreement that the impacts are there. The more difficult question has been how to deal with it," noted Ben Bobowski, Chief of Resource Stewardship for the park. "While the attention has been on the culling portion of the plan, we believe that the conservation of the ecosystem is the ultimate goal and our main focus."

Teams that include NPS and Colorado Division of Wildlife (CDOW) staff as well as qualified volunteer sharpshooters will carry out the culling in the early morning hours before park visitation increases. All cullers have been certified in firearms training, specially trained in wildlife culling and were required to pass a marksmanship test to qualify. The teams will work under the supervision of an NPS team leader to ensure humane dispatch and quality meat recovery. All animals that are culled will be tested for chronic wasting disease. The meat from animals testing positive will be used in a CDOW mountain lion research project and animals testing negative will be donated for human consumption. The cull will continue through mid-March this year.

In addition to the culling, the park will be using other management techniques including fencing, elk redistribution and vegetation restoration. Up to 160 acres of aspen stands and up to 440 acres of willow habitat will be fenced to reduce damage to the vegetation. The fencing began in October and already three exclosures totaling more than 60 acres have been constructed. Outside of fenced areas, herding, aversive conditioning and unsuppressed weapons may be used to redistribute the population and reduce densities. Throughout the process, NPS staff will use adaptive management to evaluate the success of the program and to adjust cull numbers based on current population estimates and the response of the vegetation.

"After seven years of research and four years of interagency planning we've moved forward quickly in this year since the plan was approved by putting up exclosures and implementing the culling program," Bobowski said. "Year one is a pilot program and, along with the construction of the vegetation exclosures, we are focused principally on the safety of staff and visitors, the humane treatment of the animal and then the goal of removing up to 100 elk. We don't expect to be able to evaluate the success of the program on the vegetation for about 5 years."

During the scoping process the park considered wolf restoration and fertility control as potential management techniques but opted against them as the primary tool because of lack of feasibility. However the final management proposal allows for fertility control agents to be implemented if an effective, logistically feasible agent becomes available. In addition, if there were appropriate interagency cooperation, the park would consider the use of wolves as a management tool in future years. Hunting groups advocated for using public hunting to reduce the population and although this option was considered it was dismissed since hunting is prohibited within the park by law and would need Congressional approval to be changed.

The environmental group, WildEarth Guardians, filed a lawsuit against the park in early 2008 claiming that wolf reintroduction was not adequately considered when developing the plan. The primary issue, according to the group, is the agency's dismissal of "credible scientific evidence suggesting that the absence of gray wolves is the root of the park's aspen and willow decline." When the cull began, the group implored the Obama Administration to put an immediate moratorium on the use of volunteer sharpshooters based on the long-standing ban on the use of firearms in national parks.

"National Parks are supposed to be sanctuaries from firearms," said Rob Edward of WildEarth Guardians. "The National Park Service is using members of the public to solve with rifles that which should be the bailiwick of wolves," said Edward.

The NPS contends that there is too much private land around the park and is not suitable for wolf reintroduction which the group counters by citing that only 23 percent of lands around the park are privately held. However the sites within the park that have the highest densities of elk and the greatest damage to aspen and willows are on the east side of the park. In addition, many of the animals winter outside of the park in the town of Estes Park.
The cost of the project is estimated at around $6 million during the 20-year timeframe. However, most of the costs incurred are from the one-time infrastructure costs of fencing vegetation ($2.17 million) as well as the recurring personnel costs for monitoring and implementing adaptive management ($212,000 annually). Culling operations are estimated at under $100,000 per year. (jas)