Aren’t they majestic? I love to hunt and all the times I’ve seen big Bull Elk in the wild it has caused my blood to nearly boil with excitement but I will be honest with you… unlike my love for deer hunting…
Elk and Elk hunting is truly…out of site, out of mind for me… as a single man in my early twenties what need do I have of hunting an elk? Yeah it would be great to have a huge set of Antlers hanging in my apartment or at my parent’s house… but what the hell would I do with all that meat? So what I’m saying is elk hunting is something that I have never felt I HAD to do, unlike my urge to one day shoot a grizzly bear with a bow(which is something I must do)… but that is a story for a different day, today we’re going to talk about Elk and what my solution for the overpopulation of said animal in Theodore Roosevelt National Park. Just to get you up to speed on what’s going on…
http://www.thedickinsonpress.com/articles/index.cfm?id=23159§ion=News
1. Today Byron Dorgan came up with a statement that proved to me that there is still some common sense left in Washington, this guy gets “IT” on this issue and I hope he continues to help us come to a solution that will be cost effective and practical.
2. Hunting is the most practical option on the table… though the park service would say it is not on the table because it isn’t one of the options they came up with. It is the cheapest and most effective tool the Interior Department could use.
Here is how I would implement hunting in the Park.
1. The season in the Park will not be open to the public PERIOD. (hear me out before you outdoorsmen get upset)
2. There will be 30 Cow tags and 15 Bull Tags given out in a lottery to North Dakota Armed Service members coming back from Iraq.
a. These numbers could be amended depending on what the Park deems appropriate
3. The Soliders are already employees of the United States Government, I believe this would get rid of some of the potential red tape involved. Why not give them all temporary status as professional hunters, which in the past were used by the park service to get rid of problem animals on a regular basis.
4. A relationship will be created among food pantries in the area to take any excess meat that the soliders cannot use and distributed to people in need.
5. Due to the fact that motorized vehicles are not allowed off road in the park the Game and Fish, Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation and other sportsmen’s organizations could look into monetary donations or volunteers willing to donate the use of pack horses or other gear for the hunts.
Okay if these things happen what about those of us in the public that still want to hunt elk? Why do we get shut out of hunting the biggest and best elk inside the park. My answer to that is… YOU DON’T
#1 complaint by elk hunters right now is that as soon as the elk hear the first shot they run back into the Park. This solves that problem almost immediately! The Park is no longer a sanctuary that the big bulls can use to get away from hunting pressure anymore because there is pressure on the inside of those park boundaries. This solution will solve the park’s problem by forcing elk outside of the park and culling some of the heard and will also give the public a better opportunity to harvest an animal after the first weekend because there will still be animals outside of the fence.
In the mean time we are giving our brave men and women who have defended our freedoms (Right to Bear Arms) a perk that I think they have more then EARNED
Thoughts? I’m open to suggestions on how to make this better.
I’M OUT!
