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National Park Looks for Volunteer Help with Elk

U.S. Sportsmen's Alliance

Columbus, OH --(Ammoland.com)- North Dakota’s Theodore Roosevelt National Park has opened the door to volunteers to assist in managing its elk herds.

Between November 1, 2010 and January 21, 2011, the park would like to use up to 20 volunteers each week to cull up to 250 cow elks.

Potential volunteers can apply as an individual or as a group of up to four. The applications will be accepted only through an on-line process. Click here for the application and instructions.

As the applications are received they will be put into a database and assigned a number. Successful applicants will be selected at random for each week of the planned reduction effort. Up to 240 people may be able to participate with volunteers receiving meat from up to one elk depending on the success of each week’s harvest.

According to Park Superintendent Valerie Naylor, there has been a lot of interest in a volunteer effort for some time and the online process has been designed to be as efficient and fair as possible in offering a chance to those that want to help.

Additional information about the reduction effort and elk management in general can be found at the park’s website, http://www.nps.gov/thro/naturescience/elk-management.htm.

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The U.S. Sportsmen’s Alliance is a national association of sportsmen and sportsmen’s organizations that protects the rights of hunters, anglers and trappers in the courts, legislatures, at the ballot, in Congress and through public education programs. Visit www.ussportsmen.org.

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National Park Will Use Volunteer Hunters for Elk Culling

Theodore Roosevelt National Park Elk Herd Doing Too Well? Photo: Gary Zahm/U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service

NRAHuntersRights.org

North Dakota --(AmmoLand.com)- Wildlife biologists believe that Theodore Roosevelt National Park (TRNP) in western North Dakota can support between 200 and 400 elk without serious damage to park vegetation.

But the current elk population is 950.

So, after seven years of study (at an expense to the taxpayer we can only guess at) the National Park Service (NPS) has decided that “skilled public volunteers” can be used to cull the elk herd “through the use of firearms.”

The volunteers will have to demonstrate their marksmanship skills, prove their physical fitness, and use non-lead ammunition only. They will hunt in teams, under close supervision of NPS staff, and the team leaders may even decide which animals should be taken. There are several possibilities as to disposition of the meat. Assuming tests for chronic wasting disease are negative, it may be donated to state agencies, tribes, or approved charities. Or it could go to the North Dakota Game and Fish Department, which could turn it over to charities and food banks, or even to the individual hunters who were involved.

While it may seem like a lot of hoops for a volunteer to jump through--and the non-lead ammo rule has no scientific basis--the plan is obviously far better than using public funds to hire “sharpshooters.”

“And it supports NRA’s longstanding position that NPS has and should use its authority to bring in volunteers to assist with culling,” commented Susan Recce, NRA’s Director of Conservation, Wildlife and Natural Resources.

“NRA is opposed to the ban on the use of lead ammunition,” Recce continued. “NPS has no evidence to suggest that the use of lead ammunition in hunting is a threat to the health of humans or wildlife in national parks. To my knowledge there have not been any studies on effects of hunters using lead ammunition in national parks where hunting is allowed.”

NRA fully expects the volunteers to come from the hunting community, and called for this during the public comment period, writing: The elk management plan “does not explain what kind of a system the Park will develop to identify skilled volunteers. We highly recommend that the Park work closely with the North Dakota Game and Fish Department (NDGF) in identifying volunteers within the hunting community.”

The NPS agreed, saying, “Under the preferred alternative, the Park intends to work with NDGF in order to recruit qualified volunteers and develop a reduction program that ultimately benefits both agencies.”

The many requirements imposed on volunteer hunters must be at least in part, a defense
against animal rights’ groups such as the Humane Society of the United States (HSUS) which predictably opposed the decision.

In 2008, when Rocky Mountain National Park became the first to end the use of paid sharpshooters and instead work with volunteer hunters for badly-needed elk culling, HSUS campaigned that “trophy hunters” would be turning national parks into their “personal playgrounds.” Regarding the TRNP plan, HSUS has characterized it as “an attempt to allow private sport hunters to target elk.”

Since HSUS condemns and wants to end all forms of hunting, they use terms like “sport hunters” and “trophy hunters” as if there is something evil about us, and they get mileage out of the press with those terms. By exerting a level of control, NPS may reduce the potential for such terms to be used against them.

Read More about HSUS Anti Hunting agenda:  www.action.humanesociety.org/site/PageNavigator/Change_Agenda_for_Animals

Of course, what is happening in TRNP is neither “sport hunting” nor “trophy hunting,” anyway. It is a cull–lethal reduction absolutely necessary to keep elk from destroying the Park’s resources. An elk can eat 20 pounds of food a day, easily. Elk caused extensive damage in Rocky Mountain National Park after many non-lethal reduction attempts failed.

TRNP officials have the responsibility of managing more than 70,000 acres of habitat—for dozens of wildlife species, plant communities and a half-million human visitors a year. Elk have a very important and viable place in TRNP—a place that a managed culling operation will help ensure.

For more on the final Theodore Roosevelt Elk Management Plan/Environmental Impact Statement, click here www.parkplanning.nps.gov/projectHome.cfm?parkId=167&projectId=10833

For the most up-to-date information about your hunting rights there’s just one source: www.NRAhuntersrights.org.

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