Wind Cave National Park has decided not to allow hunting inside its boundaries as a way to control its elk herd.

The park also considered reintroducing sterilized wolves to manage the herd, but dismissed the plan because federal and state wildlife agencies would not support it, said Tom Farrell, a spokesman for the park.

The herd has been growing since the park quit shipping extra animals elsewhere because they might have chronic wasting disease.

Hunting is not consistent with the park's regulations and policies, Farrell said.

"Our preferred alternative is hazing the animals outside the park and then raising the fence and installing one-way gates so the animals will be outside the park," he said.

Farrell said the park was writing the plan in conjunction with the South Dakota Department of Game, Fish & Parks.

"They (the Game, Fish & Parks department) would then increase the number of (hunting) tags outside the park, so we could use hunting to control the number of animals that use the park in the winter," he said.

John Kanta, with the Game Fish & Parks department, said the increase in tags will come if needed, but the department wants to see if there is an increase in hunting success adjacent to the park before it increases the number based on projections.

The elk population inside the park fluctuates seasonally. It was around 650 this winter. The plan calls for a sustainable herd between 232 and 475 animals depending on the available forage.

The National Park Service still is working on elk management plans for North Dakota's Theodore Roosevelt National Park to control the elk population there.

A draft management plan for the Wind Cave National Park is expected to be released in May.

Some private landowners in the area complain that elk from the park move onto their land and eat crops and hay meant for livestock. The park is in the fourth year of a study to monitor movements of the herd by attaching radio collars to several dozen elk each year.