Pat Holscher wrote:selewis wrote:Nice pics Pat, thanks.
A bit of back story, Couvi. The city of Jackson Hole is a cork in the bottleneck of the elk's migration route. Being grazers like cows, once upon a time they moseyed through town on their way down to their winter range on the flats of south eastern Idaho. When Jackson Hole became civilized, to the extent that the city mothers got fed up with the beasts trampling through their flower beds on their return trip in the spring, it was decided, in the sensible spirit of the times, that the best way to restore domestic bliss to the community would be to shoot all the elk. Times change though; and just in time for the elk's sake. That plan was shelved and they put up a big fence instead. Hence: the elk refuge, a large meadow, a natural holding pen where they are fed through the winter. The Boy Scouts collect the antlers after they are shed in the spring and they are auctioned off to furniture makers, artists, oriental druggists, whomever.
I think I'd relate the story a bit differently, but with some of the same basic features. The town of Jackson ("Jackson Hole" is the valley and the town's just Jackson) is the cork in the bottle and has been since the early 20th Century. It's built in the logical place, more or less, but it did cork up the valley. This resulted in the loss of over half of this particular herds winter grazing grounds, and there were huge die offs due to starvation in the early 20th Century. The loss wasn't due to hunting, however, but due to winter kill. The winter kills of the few years prior to 1912 were so bad that the ranchers in the valley began to feed them hay in the winter. By 1912, however, they no longer could afford to do that. The (fairly small) ranchers in the valley of that period were really hard scrabble places, as the entire valley was closed off from the outside during winter at that time. As they were having a hard time feeding their cattle, by 1912 they couldn't do it alone and petitioned the Legislature. The 1912 time frame fits into the Theodore Roosevelt era of conservation, and by that time the concept of regulated big game hunting had come in and was being very much advanced by hunters, so there wasn't actually any desire to simply kill the elk off and the concept of preserving the game herds was developed and had the regional support at that time.
The Wyoming Legislature appropriated funds to purchase hay for the elk starting with the Fall of 1912. The State continued this for several years but it soon proved to be beyond the ability of the State, and the State asked the US for help, which was forthcoming. I'm not sure when the US became involved, but the State feeding program didn't last long. After the Federal government took over, one of the ranchers sold his place back to the US, and the refuge started with 200 acres of ground. Off hand, I think it might be around 20,000 now. The ranches right in there were, as noted, fairly hard scrabble places and the refuge was built from US purchases of the ranches in the immediate neighborhood.. The feeding program will have entered its 100th year next Fall.
The number of elk on the refuge during the winter now is 7,500 elk. The natural carrying capacity of the valley before settlement was estimated at 5,000 elk. One of the big starvation events of the early 20th Century killed about 2500 elk at that time. At any rate, the elk population of the refuge is considerably over the carrying capacity of the valley in its natural state. The area to the north sees a fair amount of elk hunting, but as can be seen, that fails to keep the numbers of this heard down to the natural level. Wolf predation, which does impact this herd, isn't keeping it down either, although it's reputed to have an impact on other herds in the region to a significant event. The 7500 level is a bad thing really as it likely is up over the locally destructive level, and a test plot on the refuge tends to demonstrate that. A big fence does keep them off the highway, and out of Jackson, which they'd no doubt frequent if they could. No fences are on the other boundaries.
In recent years small numbers of bison began to show up on the refuge and when they figured out that the elk were getting fed, the small numbers became not unsubstantial numbers. They pushed elk off their feed so they have now had to feed them too. They're fed first to the north, so that they don't get into the elk and interfere with the elk feeding.
The entire story of Jackson Hole is replete with a series of odd ironies, some of which include this story. As those familiar with the area are aware, it's extremely scenic and the most valuable real estate in Wyoming is located there. But that's all a byproduct of modern transportation and has only become true since the 1970s. It was some of the worst ranching ground in the state due to its severe isolation which is demonstrated by the fact that homesteaders were selling their land back to the Federal government well before the Great Depression. Its the setting for the movie Shane, in which small farmers are portrayed as being at the mercy of big ranchers, but in reality it had a lot of tiny ranches in it at first, and only the bigger ones survived, those being the only ones that were capable of weathering the storms, literally. Today only a few of them survive and those who hung on were made freakish accidental beneficiaries of modern highways. Contrary to some of the myths that are common, it was actually agricultural interests that took the first step to save a distressed elk herd, in an era, however, when hunters were otherwise at the forefront of conservation (which is still true) and Wyoming, which was dominated by agriculture in the legislature at the time, stepped up to the plate with funding before the Federal government did. The modern result is a huge success, so much so that it's too much of a success really, and there's really too many elk and too many buffalo for the available ground.
