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Fact or Ficton ?!?!?!

Note to self, Keith Warren is a tool.

Just have a hunch maybe an operation like this had a hand in a 500+ bull? I'd be nice if I were wrong. Then maybe everyone would flock to ID instead of trying to get those crappy AZ tags.
 
AZ,
We have seen the size of Moosie's elk from Idaho and we have seen the size of your elk from AZ......

Let's just say that I send my money to AZ every year for one of those crappy tags....
 
I just always assumed the quote on your alter-egos handle "My own private Idaho" ment you were in someway affliated with some of the ID "private" hunts. :)
 
AZ402,

I think Jose Gunner was refering to his sexual orientation with that handle....didn't have anything to do with hunting. But I could be wrong.
 
Yeah, the whole state of Idaho is "private" once you get about 400 yards from where the ATV's can get to....

When you start putting YOUR money on Idaho tags, then maybe people will believe AZ is crappy and Idaho is the place to be...


(Fyi, get your money up here next May...)
 
There ain't shit in Idaho! Colorado is the place to go!

Overrun by elk
Numbers pose threat to park shrubbery, valuable potato fields

By Gary Gerhardt, Rocky Mountain News
October 3, 2005

Colorado is struggling with too much of a good thing - elk.

The state's most majestic animals are denuding vegetation in national parks, gobbling shrubbery in Estes Park, threatening to contaminate valuable potato crops in the San Luis Valley and destroying livestock feed on Western Slope ranchlands.


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Some of the conflict lies in sheer numbers.

About 338,000 elk were in Colorado before last year's hunting season, in which 63,336 were killed. That still left Colorado with 275,000 - more elk than any other state or Canadian province.

It also was 86,000 above the state Division of Wildlife's objective of 189,000 animals.

Nobody knows what the ideal number of elk would be for the state. State big game manager Bruce Watkins says the division is re-evaluating elk habitat using better modeling techniques and may find that the state can comfortably support more than 189,000.

"When we're finished, I believe we will find we underestimated habitat capacity in some areas that will readjust the total carrying capacity somewhere between 200,000 and 250,000," Watkins said.

He said that wildlife officials got behind the curve in some areas of the Western Slope.

"The elk herd increased so much in northwestern Colorado it forced many of them to the west into the sagebrush ranchlands, and the number of ranchers' complaints increased right with it," he said.

More than the sheer numbers, it is where the elk choose to live that is causing conflict. Nowhere is that more evident than along the Front Range, where urban sprawl has washed far into the foothills and elk have learned that wandering within the housing developments is a fail-safe refuge from hunters.

For all the problems they create, elk stand tall in the multimillion-dollar hunting industry in Colorado.

Elk licenses alone account for 40 percent of the Division of Wildlife's $100 million annual budget. The elk hunters pump additional millions of dollars into the tills of Western Slope businesses.

No small potatoes

Among the hot spots, none causes game managers to hold their breath like the potato patches in the San Luis Valley.

"We should have 1,500 elk in Unit 82 along the Sangre de Cristo Range, but it's grown to 5,000 to 6,000," says Rick Basagoitia, area wildlife manager.

"A lot of it is as soon as a shot is fired, the elk head into Great Sand Dunes National Park and the Baca Ranch where they have a refuge."

The worry is that the elk have recently started to spill out onto the valley floor and are starting to move toward certified seed potato fields that can be worth hundreds of thousands of dollars, Basagoitia said.

Rob Davidson, manager of the Potato Certification Service at the San Luis Valley Research Center, said the valley ranks in the top five potato producing areas in the United States.

And one-fourth of the crop is certified "seed potatoes" that are sold to grow commercial potatoes and are worth far more than regular potatoes.

"In summer, we've seen about 600 bulls and cows wandering through the spinach and carrot fields looking for alfalfa fields," he said.

"They don't eat the potato leaves, but they can walk through a commercial potato field and pick up diseases on their hoofs, then cross into a certified field and spread the disease which would render it worthless."

That hasn't happened yet, but just a few fields could wipe out the wildlife division's game damage fund.

In the past three years, the division has paid $368,000 to farmers and ranchers for elk damage.

Wildlife officials have discussed summer hunting seasons to bring the population down, Basagoitia said.

"But we still have the problem of the elk scooting back into the national park for refuge," he said.

National park supervisor Steve Chaney said the park service sympathizes with the wildlife division and the farmers, but it can only act to cut down on elk numbers if it is determined they are harming the park.

"It isn't like Rocky Mountain National Park where the elk are killing all the trees," Chaney said. "Here, elk can't do much to hurt sand."

He said they have started a three-year study with the state to find out if elk are causing problems inside the park as well as outside.

But, he said, the park service can't move elk out of the park to be killed just to solve agricultural problems in the valley.

Urban elk

The problem is not the same 100 miles north along the Front Range in Rocky Mountain National Park, where there is a well-documented overabundance of elk.

More than 3,000 move into the park during the summer and occupy a space that should contain no more than 2,100. They are causing severe damage to vegetation and the park service is looking for solutions.

Among the ideas: use park rangers or sharpshooters to kill excessive numbers in the park, try to administer fertility controls, or even reintroduce wolves.

Elk from the park spill over into Estes Park, where they destroy shrubbery, challenge joggers and golfers, dine on gardens and shrubbery in town, and get hit by cars.

"Urban problems aren't limited to Estes," said state biologist Janet George. "It's an issue all along the Front Range from Estes Park to Colorado Springs, where people have spilled into the foothills and hunting was prohibited."

State mammals research leader Dave Freddy said it's nothing new.

"When I was a kid in the 1950s, my father took me to see the elk on the lawn at the Stanley Hotel," he said.

"I remember my uncle complaining about 'elk pellets' on the golf course back then, too."

As housing developments creep farther into the forest, the elks' refuge expands.

"There are houses being built on the hills up to 9,000 feet, and elk learn to drop in among them to get away from hunting pressures," he said.

Today, pockets of elk dot the Front Range from Estes Park through Boulder, Evergreen and Douglas County into El Paso County, he said.

In Evergreen, more than 3,000 elk hang around schoolyards, golf courses and parks, and have become as common as stray dogs in towns.

"I saw a six-point bull and 35 cows feeding on a lawn near the main traffic light in town the other day," said Terry Grosz, retired U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service assistant regional director for law enforcement, who lives in the Evergreen area.

He said about 100 live in his neighborhood and they often come into his yard, eat the geraniums, tear up trees, get on his porch and recently knocked down a $120 bird feeder specially made to keep squirrels and magpies out.

Conflicts with cattle

The conflicts are different in the ranchlands of northwestern Colorado, where the largest migration of elk in the world is found.

In the area between Utah, Steamboat Springs, Wyoming and Interstate 70, there were more than 81,000 elk after last year's hunting season.

"A lot of them summer on the Flat Tops and then head west into the valley when hunting season starts, where they break down fences, get into haystacks and relieve themselves, and the cattle won't eat it," said Watkins, the state game manager.

"We've been working with ranchers to get more hunters in on their property, have cut some of those herds by half and are starting to get things under hand."

Kathleen Kelley and her husband, Reed, raise cattle on a couple of thousand acres five miles southwest of Meeker.

Both are ardent wildlife enthusiasts, but Kelley admits there are times the elk tax her patience.

"I was dropping hay for about a dozen of our horses in the pasture when about 60 head of elk came charging in, chased the horses off, and ate the hay," she said. "I had to wait until they left to continue feeding."

She said former grain fields that were left as conservation reserve to grow grass cover for wildlife are mowed as flat as a golf course from all the elk grazing there.

"It's common to have 1,000 elk in here at times and they always knock down fences, but we figure that's the price of doing business," she said.

Research leader Dave Freddy said he's never been hot on total numbers or bragging rights.

"What's important is being able to respond to specific problems without over-controlling them because of political or social pressures," he said.

"There's no question the ability of the DOW to do good things for wildlife in general is becoming more difficult because of those pressures."

Car vs. elk

1,612 Colorado traffic collisions from 1993 to 2003 involved elk.

$2,000 is the average auto-wildlife claim, according to the Rocky Mountain Insurance Information Association. That would calculate to $3.2 million in damages in 10 years.

HIGHWAYS WITH THE HIGHEST FREQUENCY OF ELK COLLISIONS

• U.S. 285 between Bailey and C-470

• Interstate 70 on Floyd Hill

• Colorado 74 between Bergen Park and Evergreen

• Colorado 13 between Meeker and the Wyoming border

• U.S. 40 between Craig and Steamboat Springs

• I-70 at Wolcott

• U.S. 36 between Boulder and Lyons



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