Pity the poor elk

Wednesday, May 16, 2007

By Richard Anderson

This weekend, ElkFest returns to downtown Jackson. Local Cub and Boy Scouts, who earlier this spring scoured the National Elk Refuge for antlers shed by the thousands of bulls who wintered there, will help auction off the odd commodity to raise money to benefit both the Refuge and their own troops’ operations.

Vendors from around the region will sell antlers they’ve picked up here and there as well as various other critter parts and pieces. Boone and Crockett will display record setting racks, elkhorn artisans will display their handiwork at the Antler Rendezvous on the Teton County Fairgrounds, the Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation will hosts its annual big game banquet and auction fundraiser at the Bar J Chuckwagon, and local Rotarians will auction off an entire elk antler arch – all 10,000 pounds of it – to raise money for the Town Square elk antler arch restoration project. All sorts of good deeds occur during ElkFest, for sure, and to think it all arises from those funny horns that elk grow each year the way you and I grow our hair.

Elk might be Jackson Hole’s special totem. The 25,000-acre National Elk Refuge defines the city of Jackson, at least on its northern border; that view up the valley all the way to Yellowstone will remain open and unobstructed for as long as the law of the land holds fast. In the 1910s, thousands of Jackson Hole elk dying of starvation during harsh winters, and the efforts of local residents to save them, thrust the community into the national limelight.

Back in pioneer days, legends tell, elk ivories were better than American cash for provisions. And no doubt the original inhabitants of the region held the wapiti in high regard, not only for their ability to survive the cruel winters, but for the life-giving meat, hide and bone they supplied.

Today, the form of the elk graces the logo of the National Museum of Wildlife Art. There are many businesses around the valley named after the animal. Our fall economy is based largely upon them, be it hunters hiring outfitters to lead them into the woods or art patrons paying thousands for paintings or sculptures of them.

First-time visitors, long-time residents, valley natives – we all stop to admire them when we encounter them in the wild or see hundreds clustered on the Refuge in the winter.

As much as we love them – revere them, even – you’d think our resident elk would be about as safe as anything wild could be in the hands of human beings, but no. Diseases like brucellosis and chronic wasting threaten their numbers. The last of their critical winter range continues to be gobbled up by development. And their populations are still toyed with – “managed,” some call it – like pork bellies or interest rates.

Yes, we do love our elk. But until we RESPECT them, they’re just as endangered as anything else that is wild and free.
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Pity the poor elk | Planet JH News Article: Editorial

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