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This Speakout has not been edited

By David Nimkin, National Parks Conservation Association

We all agree that the burgeoning elk population in and around Rocky Mountain National Park needs to be addressed. This is a problem for the elk, the park ecosystem, and neighboring communities. But NPCA does not believe that the solution lies in hastily changing federal law to allow a public elk hunt.

Elk are abundant in Rocky Mountain for a number of reasons, including the loss of predators such as wolves; fragmentation of habitats essential to the integrity of the larger ecosystem once used by elk; and adjacent development, which has closed down migration corridors and limited elk mobility. Increasingly, wildlife is stranded in ecological islands such as Rocky Mountain National Park-with devastating results on the natural ecosystem.

This situation did not arise overnight. And the problems being felt at Rocky Mountain are also being felt nearby, so this is not simply a park problem, but a shared one. Rocky Mountain is not only a state resource, but also a national treasure and therefore requires gathering input from all stakeholders, including adjacent communities, park visitors, private landowners, wildlife managers, and the National Park Service. This process is a core value that Governor Ritter is encouraging in Colorado.

The Park Service is not finalizing its Environmental Impact Statement-its strategy on this issue-until June. The agency will be working to address concerns raised about the cost of a culling operation. The new cost assessment should be careful and deliberate, and honor the resource protection and visitor experience responsibilities of the Park Service at Rocky Mountain.

In the meantime, we should not pursue a hasty public hunt. Aside from obvious issues related to disrupting the experience of park visitors at best, and endangering them at worst, a public hunt is inconsistent with the purposes of the park and at odds with a fundamental purpose for which national parks were established: to protect resources unimpaired. Additionally, hunting, unlike culling, is not designed to remove the most appropriate animals identified by scientists to make the herd healthy and would limit the opportunity to conduct necessary research of chronic wasting disease, which only a controlled culling operation would provide.

In the short-term, a limited Park Service-run culling operation is necessary. Let the Park Service protect the resources they are charged by law with protecting. This is an important first step toward achieving a more functional ecological balance in the park.

Rocky Mountain was designated a national park because of its fragile, inspiring wild landscapes; diversity of wildlife, and a variety of recreational opportunities that do not include hunting. Changing the park’s authorization, as Rep. Udall’s ill-advised legislation proposes to do, would undermine the foundation upon which this park was created. Moreover, it would set a dangerous precedent in which the purposes behind America’s greatest idea are trampled and replaced by shortsighted actions that ignore the fundamental, root causes behind afflictions facing our great parks.

Rocky Mountain National Park is a national treasure and an important state icon. We all have a responsibility to ensure its long-term protection and preservation.

David Nimkin, Salt Lake City, is Southwest Regional Director of the National Parks Conservation Association

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