The Jackson Hole Elk Herd: Its Management Is Still a Problem.

Authors(s): C. D. Shoemaker

Publication: Wyoming Wild Life

Publisher:

Publication Date: 0000-00-00

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Location:

Abstract: This article briefly states the attitudes of the State of Wyoming and the Park Service on the Grand Teton National Park hunting controversy. The ideas are so diametrically opposed as to make any real cooperative study of the situation extremely difficult, if at all possible. The Wyoming Game and Fish Commission feels very strongly that it must be free to permit an equal hunting pressure all along the elk migration front in order to maintain the present migration pattern and to take a balanced harvest from the herd. The National Park Service wants hunting on Park lands only as a corrective measure and only when Park Service officials feel it is absolutely necessary. In short, Game Department officials feel that hunting certain specified portions of Grand Teton National Park lands is desirable and necessary to the proper and efficient management of the Jackson Hole elk herd. Park Service officials have a directly opposite view. Cooperative agreements have allowed limited hunting to date; however, the wording of Mr Chapman's letter, "... this agreeemnt is for the present year only," makes game management officials apprehensive of the future for the Jackson Hole elk herd -- one of the United States' most valuable wildlife assets.

Keywords: Jackson Hole, Teton County, National Elk Refuge, animal studies, animal, mammal, unguate, elk, wapiti, Cervus elaphus, Cervidae, management, population, distribution, migration, food, feeding, forage, winter food supplementation, hunting, human activity, mortality, Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem, wildlife