Wildlife official calls for Wind Cave elk hunting season

| Wednesday, March 21, 2007

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Kevin Woster, Journal staff

RAPID CITY -- A state wildlife commissioner from Rapid City wants South Dakota’s congressional delegation to push for hunting seasons in Wind Cave National Park to control the park’s expanding elk herd.

Jeff Olson, a member of the South Dakota Game, Fish & Parks Commission, said tightly regulated hunting seasons such as those used in Custer State Park would be an effective and cost-effective way to control elk numbers at adjoining Wind Cave. He intends to address the issue at the GF&P Commission meeting May 10 and 11 in Custer State Park.

Some members of the congressional delegations from North Dakota and Colorado are pushing for hunting season authorization at national parks in their states, and South Dakota should do the same, Olson said. Rocky Mountain National Park in Colorado and Theodore Roosevelt National Park in North Dakota, and their elk herds, are the objects of those efforts.

Olson believes Wind Cave should be next.

“I think the time is right, with North Dakota and Colorado pursuing it,” he said. “I know the (GF&P) staff in Pierre is working on it. Obviously, Game, Fish & Parks would support hunting. The specifics are the big question. It’s a touchy issue.”

Grand Teton National Park near Jackson, Wyo., is the only one of the nation’s 58 national parks that allows hunting. And that provision was included in the park’s enabling legislation. Former Wind Cave superintendent Linda Stoll, who often expressed reservations about the notion of hunting in the park, has said that it would take an act of Congress.

Olson believes the park has few other options that would be as effective. With a herd currently estimated at 600 to 650 -- and possibly more -- there are almost twice as many elk as habitat in the 28,000-acre park can sustain, Olson said. Previous transfers of elk to Indian reservations and elsewhere once helped control the Wind Cave herd. But the confirmation of chronic wasting disease in the park’s herd has ended those transfers, he said.

Using sport hunters in well-designed seasons similar to those in Custer State Park could control the herd, reduce problems for adjoining landowners and provide an exceptional sport-hunting opportunity for those lucky enough to draw a permit, Olson said.

“National parks like Wind Cave were set up to revive wildlife species because their populations were so low. Now, they’re eating themselves out of house and home,” Olson said. “The bigger issues outside the park are with depredation on private land. Inside the park, they just have to manage that herd.”

Sen. John Thune, R-S.D., agrees with Olson on the need to trim the Wind Cave elk herd and believes hunting might be the right option.

“Since the elk are overpopulated, it only makes sense to open the area to hunters,” Thune said. “This option could possibly raise revenue, and it is in keeping with the strong South Dakota tradition of hunting.”

Russ Levsen, a spokesman for Rep. Stephanie Herseth, D-S.D., said Herseth is willing to consider supporting hunting in the park but prefers to wait until an environmental assessment of elk-management options is presented by Wind Cave personnel.

“The congresswoman wouldn’t dismiss the idea of hunting out of hand. But she doesn’t think we’ve got enough information to make that decision,” Levsen said.

A spokeswoman for Sen. Tim Johnson, D-S.D., said the office didn’t have a position or statement on the idea at this time. Johnson is in a rehabilitation facility following brain surgery in December.

Wind Cave is working on an elk management plan that includes development of an environmental impact statement. That process began in 2005 with a round of public “scoping” meetings. By this summer or fall, the park service will release a list of possible alternatives to manage elk numbers, park spokesman Tom Farrell said.

“We are currently in the process of developing the elk-management plan to determine how many elk should be using the park, which means could be used to reduce the population to a target range, and how we will maintain that population,” Farrell said. “In this plan, we are considering a wide range of alternatives.”

After the set of possible alternatives -- which could include a proposal for special sharpshooters rather than sport hunters -- is determined, the public will have another opportunity to ask questions and comment, Farrell said.

Olson, who is an avid hunter, said he likes the idea of sport hunting in the park both for its management value and because a park hunt would be an exceptional outdoor experience.

“I represent sportsmen, and I’d certainly love to draw a tag in the park,” he said.

Contact Kevin Woster at 394-8413 or kevin.woster@rapidcityjournal.com