Washington State Progressing in Elk Removal Protocol

A program Washington State sponsored by Representative Tom Dent that would move or remove elk that have damaged farms and ranches is making progress on developing plans to deal with the animals.

Dent said the elk can cause damage in numerous ways.

“They tear out fences because they can; they’re big animals and they’re strong. If they step on any PVC irrigation equipment, they immediately break it so then it has to be replaced. The wheel lines, they just move them out of the way so they break them. The biggest problem is when they go into the hay barns. If they take a bite of hay, say out of a bail of timothy in a hay barn that was destined for export; they take one bit out of that bale of hay and then that bale is now not eligible for export.”

And at that point the hay is likely sold to a local rancher, but at a significant reduction in price.

Dent said the group that will strategize and implement plans to deal with elk in North Central Washington had their first meeting recently.

“I came out of that meeting pretty optimistic that we were on track. It hasn’t been that way because I’ve worked on this for two years and it’s been kind of a lot of hard work, but I was real hopeful and pleased how it turned out in our first stakeholder meeting. I think we’re on track.”

Some of the options will be to put fencing along the highway to protect cars, depradation of some of the elk, educating the public on why they shouldn’t feed the elk and much more.

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