Elk hunting incident forces state's hand

By Tahlia Ganser, Skagit Valley Herald
Published: 01/02/10 12:42 pm



CONCRETE -- The killing of about seven elk cornered in a farm pasture in eastern Skagit County spurred state officials to close the elk archery season in the area and angered others who either witnessed or heard about the killings.

"Obviously, this got a little out of hand," Dave Ware, state Department of Fish and Wildlife game division manager, said Monday.

Ware said the hunters who gathered around a herd of elk on Bill Johnson's beef ranch five miles west of Concrete on Dec. 26 "lacked discretion" and "took advantage of the situation" when they shot dozens of arrows into the panicked herd.

The state wildlife agency had opened elk hunting in an area roughly bounded by highways 9 and 20, east to the intersection of 20 and Cape Horn Road. The hunting season was created to keep elk out of the residential and farm areas in eastern Skagit County.

However, Ware said the agency closed the season Monday afternoon on an emergency basis because of the spectacle.

A Fish and Wildlife officer was at the scene Dec. 26, but didn't stop the hunters because they had not violated the law.

The property's owner said Monday that once neighbors spotted the elk in his south pasture, the word got out.

"A few of my neighbors have friends who are bow hunters," Johnson said.

The word began to spread until a dozen or more bow hunters were in Johnson's field trying to encircle the herd, which by then had moved to the north pasture. Johnson, whose family has farmed on the Wilde Road property since 1915, wasn't pleased with the way the situation progressed.

"The whole thing kind of got out of control," he said.

Other hunters in the area said the incident disgusted them.

"How can you call that hunting?" asked Bob Coombs, 70, of Mount Vernon. "You pin some animals inside a barbed wire closure then allow people to come in there and take shots at them with arrows. Good Lord. That can't be called hunting. There are some fair chase rules that any ethical hunter subscribes to."

Longtime hunter Walter Gillespie, 82, of Sedro-Woolley, agreed.

"I think it was an atrocity," Gillespie said. "It's not a sportsman's way. It sounded to me like a fiasco, and it was something that didn't have to happen at all."

He said the hunt wasn't fair, with the elk penned up and hunters coming from both sides of the herd.

Gillespie said the worst part wasn't the elk that died and were hauled away.

"How many more were shot, damn it," he said. "That's what bugs me. If one didn't fall down, they'd shoot another one. The whole thing was like a comedy. A bad, bad comedy."

Last year, some hunters were licensed to hunt elk in the area with muzzle loaders. Some of the hunters trespassed on private property or took shots from the highway, officials said. So Fish and Wildlife limited this season to archery to try to prevent some of the abuse, Ware said.

On Wednesday, state Department of Fish and Wildlife Director Phil Anderson said the hunt was intended to control damage by moving elk off fields and encouraging them to return to forested areas. Property owners in the vicinity had complained that elk were trampling fields, knocking over fences and damaging orchards and vegetable crops.

"Unfortunately, the hunt was not carried out in a manner consistent with WDFW's Hunter's Code of Conduct, and we took immediate action to close the archery hunt in that area," Anderson said.

Weren't these bozos trespassing on the land owned by another? That alone will get you a citation here in TX. What idiots!

Trespassing is not at issue here. This is a farm that is negatively influenced by bearing the brunt of the damage this feeding and resident herd cause year in and year out. This occurred in a narrow river valley, bounded by river, highways and steep mountainsides nearby. The elk have a long time habit of feeding on the narrow bottomland. It happens that this places them on private property and a farmer ends up personally supporting more wildlife than he aparently cares to afford due to crop damage and fence damage, for example.
The problem here is made possible by the limited focal point of the feeding area, the public highway visibility of the field on the edge of a small town, the bunching of animals and hunters all at one time. Opportunism, greed, offended community citizens who watch the elk year after year, made this the worst of all storms.
This problem has been in existence for many years. Likewise, the nonpaying public has assumed partial ownership of "their local herd" of elk.
I am not speaking of sportsmen's ethics or making judgement. We'll leave that to the witnesses or the internet junkies who want to condemn. This simply tells the setting and how this opportunity could happen. This herd is part of a basis for restoring and enhancing the declined herd in the greater area.
Declining economy, reduced wildlife department staffing, reduced budget to pay damage support to a "hammered" farmer are also part of the big picture.
Hazing can be, and has been, employed in situations like this concentration of animals. Someone needs to be paid to perform that repetative and time consuming task. Department coordination of limited access, hunting separation away from visible locations, etc. might have been a solution. And who will pay for that?

There are many causal factors to this debacle. It is a bad deal for hunting and more complicated than public media or pundits may portray and recognize.

Marv, from 40 miles away.

quote:

more complicated than public media or pundits may portray and recognize.

Marv, from 40 miles away.

That's a point that should be highlighted again!

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