Introduction

Authors(s): T. W. Clark and G. D. Brewer

Publication: Yale F&ES Bulletin

Publisher:

Publication Date: 0000-00-00

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Location:

Abstract: National Elk Refuge in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, is renowned for the thousands of elk that winter there and the many other wildlife species that can be observed year-round. The refuge sits near the center of the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem (Figure 1), a bioregion of nineteen million acres of national parks, forests, and wildlife refuges with national and global importance. Over ten million visitors enjoy the ecosystem each year, with three million viewing the refuge. The refuge was established in 1912, and generations of committed citizens and federal and state agency officials have taken care of the elk and their habitat over the last nine decades. An important public resource, the refuge?s twenty-five thousand acres are all that remains of a much larger, historic winter range. Much of the Jackson Hole elk herd of sixteen thousand animals winters there, while in summer these same elk roam over a million or more acres of public lands, mostly managed by the U.S. Forest Service and U.S. National Park Service. Because this region is a leader in natural resource policy and management, what happens on the National Elk Refuge and adjacent public lands has ramifications far beyond their boundaries. Currently, there is growing attention on the policies and practices by which the refuge is managed. A vigorous debate is underway in the region about what management goals are appropriate and how management should be carried out, by whom, and for whose benefit. At the same time, the 1997 National Wildlife Refuge System Improvement Act mandates comprehensive planning on this and other refuges. Finally, an upcoming environmental impact statement on elk and bison management in Jackson Hole under the National Environmental Policy Act will further focus the debate. Taken together, these exigencies now provide a rare opportunity for a strategic reassessment of the last few decades of management and open up the possibility for a new, more sustainable direction for policy. Managing natural resources is becoming more complex as contexts change, as new demands are made on existing institutions, and as people strive to solve emerging problems in diverse and sometimes contradictory ways. No matter what the biological details, management usually boils down to two questions: ? How we are going to use natural resources? ? Who gets to decide?

Keywords: National Elk Refuge, Jackson Hole, Teton County, animal, mammal, ungulate, elk, wapiti, Cervus elaphus, Cervidae, Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem, habitat, winter food supplementation, population, US Forest Service, US National Park Service, Grand Teton National Park, Bridger-Teton National Forest, management, National Wildlife Refuge System, bison, Bison bison, disease, brucellosis, food, feeding, forage