Rocky Mtn. Nat'l. Park Elk Slaughter

[Buckrub]

I just sent an email off to the National Park Service complaining about the proposed elk slaughter by park staff.
It would make much more sense to have Congress approve a managed hunt on park property, and let the taxpaying sportsmen harvest the elk.
Estimated costs to the taxpayers to have the elk shot by rangers is $858,000.
That cost is for 700 elk, with some being left to feed other species.
What a frigg'in waste of money and wildlife resources!!
You can email the NPS with your own comments at: [email protected]
Comments must be received prior to July 4th.

 

[Moosie]

Is someone in california Running that operation or what ?!?!?

 

[noharleyyet]

1225 & change per...do they hire 700 different rangers?

 

[MarvB]

Is someone in california Running that operation or what ?!?!?

....not me....I never draw a tag remember?

 

[danr55]

Did I read somewhere they are going to shoot them at night? That's going to be an interesting operation. Maybe SF is renting snipers and they'll pick them at 1000 meters with M-107 rifles?

 

[Bambistew]

Let the park service take care of it! Sure it will cost some money, but in the end hunters won't have the black eye...

If they open a hunt it will be on the news at 6 and you can bet there will be more than enough footage of yahoos running around with guns than they can fit in the half hour segment!

Snipping at night? Cameras don't work so well at night, and its harder to figure out where to point them!

 

[shoots-straight]

Bambistew you consider your fellow sportsman yahoos?

I have more faith in our fellow hunters, they can be educated on how to act.

We now have buffalow hunts here in Montana, and we were on TV at 6:00.

Nothing ventured nothing gained. I'd rather see sportsman paying for it than

me. The local economy would also benifit rather than some sniper. This is a

case where we can all stand up for our fellow sportsman and send a little

e-mail to help out hunters in the area. One good turn deserves another.

 

[Buckrub]

Thanks Shoots-Straight, my sentiments exactly!!!
Why let the "parknarcs" shoot a bunch of elk on our dollar. Especially, if they intend to let alot of them just lay and go to waste!!

Bambistew, what's got you so jaded today?
I'll buy ya a cold one, this evening, but please leave the cynicism @ the office!!

 

[sreekers]

There was a post a while back that gave the email to the guy to send your thoughts and feelings to. I did it, never heard anything back. If somebody would dig that up we could all send our grievances.

 

[Curly]

Well, it's not the answer to Tom's question in his sig. But now we know what it cost to kill a RM elk......$1,226.

 

[shoots-straight]

Wow, if I had $1226 for evey elk I shot, I'd have............. well, cary the 2, add the one, times the 3.......no that ain't right......well I'd have alot of money right there....... Get er done.

 

[MarvB]

Must be outfitting each shooter with a M-700 Titanium...1 per elk

 

[Bambistew]

The buffalo hunts didn't happen inside the park for one, they didn't happen 30 miles from highest populations of bunny huggers/hippies in the west, aka Boulder for 2, and they didn't plan on shooting 700+ of them... Luckily the handful of hunters that got tags hunted them in a manner such that they were difficult for the buffalo hippies to follow and exploit. Although there was some exploitation of a couple of drawn out kills.

Don't take this the wrong way, as a hunter I think that the right thing to do is hunt the excess elk, but since we're a small minority and the park is for everyone I think it will be the wrong way to go about it and as a hunter you can bet we will take the brunt of the fall out as opposed to the park service.

You can't tell me that you could round up 4-500+ hunters, send them into RMP and tell them to go kill an elk and there won't be problems. It WILL be on the 6 o-clock news you can count on that! This is in the national spotlight as it is, the buff issue was more local in nature. As a mater of fact there was a snipped on the NBC nightly news a couple weeks ago about the RMNP problem.

How could they logistically plan a hunt in the park? Would they close it down? How much money would be lost by going that route? What about retrieval? Horses? There aren’t many roads in the park...

Do I think my fellow sportsman are yahoo's? Quite a few of them and a hunt like this will bring them out of the wood work unfortunately.

Its a messed up situation anyway you look at it, and IMO its better to let the park service take the brunt of the heat, than pass it off to the sportsman. RMNP is to popular of a park and people won't just look the other way...

 

[sreekers]

I don't think that it would be as big of a problem if they did it in two separate seasons. No park closure, they would make money off of the revenue from the licenses. Money talks is what it comes down to, even to people who don't have an opinion. Have the hunt in late November, have it be accessible only by foot. The money brought in over several years of hunting would talk. I am by no means all about the money but if you were to post a sign on every project that was done in the park that said "Funded by the Rocky Mountain National Park Elk Hunters," or something along that nature it would be good press. A lot of people visit the park that don't have an opinion on hunting, if they were to see projects funded specificly from hunting money that could change opinions.

 

[Bambistew]

Sreekers, I think that would have merrit. I just think the logistics of it will be difficult to manage. If it could be conducted out of sight... you know the rest.

I just hope that it doesn't become a big cluster F if they decide to have the hunt. IMO its not worth the cost.

 

[mtmiller]

A lot of people visit the park that don't have an opinion on hunting, if they were to see projects funded specificly from hunting money that could change opinions.

Only downside is that door swings both ways. Lots of folks that don't have an opinion might have negative opinions after they remember the elk they watched grazing in the ditch with a traffic jam of cars and photographers is now in the back of some bubba's pick-up.

My opinion was much closer to yours sreekers, but Bambi makes some very good points and I have since jumped ship. Lot's of hunting scenes, even the ethical ones, are not best portrayed to non-hunters and anti-hunters via the 6 o'clock news.

 

[sreekers]

Bambi makes very good points. I am just tired of the greenies dictating so much about us to the public. Honestly they don't know what we do for the animals that we hunt. We as hunters just need to do a better job of presentation. We do have some hillbilies that hurt us. However I think that the majority of us that have meaningful discussions could change public opinion if given the right channels.

I agree the door swings both ways and it only takes one idiot to screw it up. Stringent rules for the way hunting is conducted in the park would be necessary to make it work. It would be intertesting to see when the park is visited the least, and then have hunt take place during those months? Like a November or December, but I would have to see a park schedule.

 

[A-con]

I’m not that familiar with RMNP so maybe this idea is crap, but here it is.
Why not issue a bunch of extra tags for the unites bordering the park, then hire a few cowboys for about 1/100th the cost to push a bunch of elk out of the park, cattle drive style, the day before opening day ?

 

[MarvB]

Doesn't seem like this option (culling) is anything new- they were proposing it as an alternative a couple of years back:

http://www.nps.gov/romo/planning/elkvegetation/documents/newsletters/ROMO_NL2.pdf

I agree it would be nice if it could be handled through a tag allotment but with the kind of slobs running around out there I've got to agree with miller and bambi about the PR....some numbnutz would definatley fugg it up and we'd lose ground all the way around

 

[JoseCuervo]

Does a "sportsman" hunt elk in a National Park? Are you allowed to bait them in with Cheet-o's?