I took my first sleigh
ride around the National Elk Refuge recently, and after observing
the artificial-feed buffet for elk, the calf hoof-rot and all the
willows nibbled to the nubs, all I could think was: “I have a
feeling we’re not in Wyoming anymore.”
Isn’t Wyoming supposed to be the state where the federal
government is as welcome as knapweed? Where, even in trendy
Jackson, the fittest survive and the rest move back to
Massachusetts?
Yet there on the snowy plains of Jackson
Hole — as far as the eye could see — were thousands upon
thousands of elk queued up at the public trough as if in a Great
Depression bread line. Call it the National Elk Soup Kitchen.
At first glance, I admit, it seemed a grand spectacle.
Who wouldn’t be impressed by so many of these iconic symbols
of the American frontier, their stately antlers outlined against
the purple-and-white majesty of the rugged Gros Ventres? Where else
can a visitor get so up-close and personal with wild animals?
Well, yes. A zoo.
The refuge has become as
natural as Botox and about as Wyoming as, well, Washington, D.C. We
can try insisting on a different image, but when the animals are
contained on one side by a tall fence, and when they’re all
infested with lice and scabies and infected with disease, and when
Uncle Sam is the one ringing the dinner bell, it takes some serious
spin-doctoring to argue that this is anything more than ungulate
welfare.
To be fair, this annual rite was born in part
from yet another Wyoming trait: Big-heartedness. A century ago,
brutal winter weather, livestock expansion and development pushed
these creatures perilously close to extinction in Jackson Hole.
Local folks stepped in to prevent a tragedy.
It was
compassionate conservatism before the term became a hollow talking
point, the New Deal before it was a twinkle in FDR’s monocle.
Like the New Deal, the feed ground outlived its
usefulness. Elk are now abundant across the West and far too
abundant in Jackson Hole. Where once feeding had been a necessary
sustenance tool, it is now a crutch with harmful consequences.
Eventually, it might even doom the herd.
The scabies and
lice scars, both scruffy symptoms of the elk’s crowded
confines, are gnarly enough, but brucellosis is about 15 times more
prevalent in Jackson Hole’s herd than in truly wild herds.
And the inability of some calves to walk due to hoof rot —
courtesy of their daily wallowing in mud and feces — is a sad
spectacle, though perhaps not to the six coyotes waiting for a safe
moment to join the buffet line. If this isn’t convincing
enough evidence that the cost of feed grounds surely outweighs the
few benefits for the elk and taxpayer, there’s the chilling
prospect of chronic wasting disease at the refuge’s doorstep.
To our sleigh guide’s credit, he acknowledged the
challenges facing not only the Elk Refuge but also the other feed
grounds dotting western Wyoming. Regardless of one’s position
on the issue, he emphasized, a love for elk is a unifying theme.
But we just might be loving our elk to death.
As our
sleigh pointed back to the highway, I thought about two dozen
renegade elk I’d seen a day earlier along the Hoback River.
The small herd had hopped off the welfare rolls and was gainfully
employed grazing on natural grasses. I contemplated how they
migrate as nature programmed them, the strong fending off diseases
and the weak providing meals for predators. More telling was how it
felt watching them high on a ridge. Contrary to the refuge, where
the elk are de facto domesticated for half the year, these Hoback
ungulates were wild, and seeing them was a treat.
Surely,
I reasoned, a sleigh ride through healthy willow and cottonwood
thickets with a chance of spotting truly wild elk, wolves, moose,
bison and other such native wildlife would be more appealing than
navigating this artificial wilderness we call the National Elk
Refuge. Rugged individualists all, those elk above the Hoback River
were relying on their wits, savvy and strength to succeed in a vast
land of opportunity.
No government handouts wanted, thank
you. Now that, Toto, is the Wyoming I know and love.
Jeff Welsch is a contributor to Writers on the Range, a
service of High Country News (hcn.org). He is
the new communications director for the Greater Yellowstone
Coalition in Jackson, Wyoming.
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