Apparently, some are worried that the supermarket will be running short in the near future... Oak
Professor's prime advice: Trim the elk herds, now
By Charlie Meyers
http://www.denverpost.com/Stories/0,1413,36~110~1402176,00.html
For a man who has collected an uncommon amount of praise for his ability to enunciate the incorruptible verity of numbers, Gary White's words rang with a passion far beyond anything ever logged in a computer.
"Eventually, we're going to severely damage our elk habitat with too many animals, just as happened with deer," the Colorado State professor of fishery and wildlife biology said while advocating an even more aggressive effort to curtail the state's overpopulation of its primary big game animal.
White, who recently received CSU's inaugural "Scholarship Impact Award," is a statistical prophet, a man whose ability to collect and project solid wildlife information has earned national and international acclaim.
In 2000, White was given the Aldo Leopold Award and Medal, the highest honor bestowed by The Wildlife Society, the world's most important group of wildlife professionals. He also has earned the Los Alamos National Laboratory Distinguished Performance Award and the Conservation Service Award from the Department of Interior, highest given by that agency to nonfederal employees.
Little things like that.
So when the 54-year-old research biologist draws his methodology up in a tight little ball and declares that the Colorado Division of Wildlife needs to take even more drastic steps to get its elk herds in check, perhaps it's time to listen.
White has worked extensively and cheerfully with the wildlife agency during his 20 years in the state and knows full well its efforts in issuing an increasing number of hunting permits aimed at shooting more cow elk.
It's just that with the exception of those odd years when the sun, stars and moon align to produce record harvest, as happened with in 2002 when 61,175 animals were taken, the current strategy isn't getting the job done. The 10-year average shows just more than 46,000 elk involuntarily leaving the woods, a rate that got us into the current overpopulation predicament in the first place.
White developed his theories during an 18-year period during which he worked with now-retired DOW researcher Dick Bartmann on the landmark Piceance/Little Hills mule deer project.
The study demonstrated the propensity for animals to eat themselves out of house and home when population densities expand out of control. In the case of mule deer, these effects were exacerbated by an ambient decline in habitat echoed throughout the Rocky Mountain rangeland.
To illustrate his point, White takes us to a place we all know well, our local supermarket.
"If you lock a bunch of people in a grocery store, everyone eats the ice cream first. But by the end of winter, they'll be chewing on lima beans. Nobody likes lima beans."
Now White gets down to the real nitty-gritty and into a world even beyond the horrors of broccoli.
"Then if you lock enough people in the store, all the beans and broccoli will be gone by mid-winter and everyone starves. If you keep this going year after year and the grocery doesn't get restocked each fall, eventually you begin to damage the habitat. You can get by with this for a while, but eventually it catches up with you."
White projects that if something isn't done to significantly crop the elk, and soon, elk winter range will suffer in much the same way as happened with deer.
"If we don't control the elk population now, we'll pay a much bigger price later on."
White advocates a return to widespread either-sex licenses, a ploy that produced a 60,000-plus harvest in 2000. DOW promptly scrapped the device when it also caused a rash of mistaken identity potshots at protected moose and spike bulls.
"Everyone is a bull hunter until 9 a.m. on opening day when that first cow runs by," he declared. "If we give hunters that choice, we'll remove the desired numbers of cows and take a lot of pressure off the bulls."
Presumably, we also end up with plenty of broccoli left over for next season.
Professor's prime advice: Trim the elk herds, now
By Charlie Meyers
http://www.denverpost.com/Stories/0,1413,36~110~1402176,00.html
For a man who has collected an uncommon amount of praise for his ability to enunciate the incorruptible verity of numbers, Gary White's words rang with a passion far beyond anything ever logged in a computer.
"Eventually, we're going to severely damage our elk habitat with too many animals, just as happened with deer," the Colorado State professor of fishery and wildlife biology said while advocating an even more aggressive effort to curtail the state's overpopulation of its primary big game animal.
White, who recently received CSU's inaugural "Scholarship Impact Award," is a statistical prophet, a man whose ability to collect and project solid wildlife information has earned national and international acclaim.
In 2000, White was given the Aldo Leopold Award and Medal, the highest honor bestowed by The Wildlife Society, the world's most important group of wildlife professionals. He also has earned the Los Alamos National Laboratory Distinguished Performance Award and the Conservation Service Award from the Department of Interior, highest given by that agency to nonfederal employees.
Little things like that.
So when the 54-year-old research biologist draws his methodology up in a tight little ball and declares that the Colorado Division of Wildlife needs to take even more drastic steps to get its elk herds in check, perhaps it's time to listen.
White has worked extensively and cheerfully with the wildlife agency during his 20 years in the state and knows full well its efforts in issuing an increasing number of hunting permits aimed at shooting more cow elk.
It's just that with the exception of those odd years when the sun, stars and moon align to produce record harvest, as happened with in 2002 when 61,175 animals were taken, the current strategy isn't getting the job done. The 10-year average shows just more than 46,000 elk involuntarily leaving the woods, a rate that got us into the current overpopulation predicament in the first place.
White developed his theories during an 18-year period during which he worked with now-retired DOW researcher Dick Bartmann on the landmark Piceance/Little Hills mule deer project.
The study demonstrated the propensity for animals to eat themselves out of house and home when population densities expand out of control. In the case of mule deer, these effects were exacerbated by an ambient decline in habitat echoed throughout the Rocky Mountain rangeland.
To illustrate his point, White takes us to a place we all know well, our local supermarket.
"If you lock a bunch of people in a grocery store, everyone eats the ice cream first. But by the end of winter, they'll be chewing on lima beans. Nobody likes lima beans."
Now White gets down to the real nitty-gritty and into a world even beyond the horrors of broccoli.
"Then if you lock enough people in the store, all the beans and broccoli will be gone by mid-winter and everyone starves. If you keep this going year after year and the grocery doesn't get restocked each fall, eventually you begin to damage the habitat. You can get by with this for a while, but eventually it catches up with you."
White projects that if something isn't done to significantly crop the elk, and soon, elk winter range will suffer in much the same way as happened with deer.
"If we don't control the elk population now, we'll pay a much bigger price later on."
White advocates a return to widespread either-sex licenses, a ploy that produced a 60,000-plus harvest in 2000. DOW promptly scrapped the device when it also caused a rash of mistaken identity potshots at protected moose and spike bulls.
"Everyone is a bull hunter until 9 a.m. on opening day when that first cow runs by," he declared. "If we give hunters that choice, we'll remove the desired numbers of cows and take a lot of pressure off the bulls."
Presumably, we also end up with plenty of broccoli left over for next season.
