For northwest ranchers and farmers, conflicts with wild elk are hardly a new concern. Most have spent decades contending with the damaged fences, destroyed crops, and grazed off pastures that cohabitation with elk inevitably brings.
In recent years, however, a sharply increasing population, as well as marked changes in distribution, have led to a steady increase in the number of complaints regarding elk damage, as well as the scope of the damage inflicted. For one valley in northwest Washington, the problem has reached a boiling point.
“There’s just a lot more elk than there used to be,” says Skagit Valley rancher Randy Good. “In our little valley here, we figure that there’s about 700 elk that call this place home.”
Good indicates that the increases began about 10 years ago, and are the results of attempts by the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife (WDFW) to bolster what was, at that time, considered a declining population. However, efforts to sustain what is known as the North Cascades herd go back much farther than that.
According to WDFW records, the first importations of elk into the Skagit Valley took place in 1912. While these elk were reportedly claimed by poachers, subsequent efforts in the 1940s met with more success, resulting in an estimated herd size of 1,400-2,000 head by the mid-1980s. When the population decreased again in the 1990s, WDFW once again sought to bolster the herd with outside elk.
Between 2003 and 2005, working in conjunction with local native tribes, WDFW imported 98 elk from elsewhere in the state, and placed stiff protections on the remaining local elk. The resulting boom has, at least according to landowners, resulted in a population that exceeds the region’s carrying capacity.
“The original goal for their elk herd was 1,950 head,” explains Good. “When they did their count last spring, they came up with around 2,500, including calves.”
“They’ve accomplished their goal,” he adds, “but they’re never happy. There’s never going to be enough elk for (WDFW).”
Ranch damages
While WDFW stops short of saying there are too many elk in the north Cascades herd, they do admit that the damage taking place in the Skagit Valley has gotten out of hand.
“It was not the department’s intention to grow a large population of elk on the valley floor,” says WDFW biologist Robert Waddell via email. “The elk naturally found their way into the bottomlands following reintroduction, and have become established there.”
“In order to address and mitigate damage, the department has used a wide variety of techniques,” he adds.
According to Waddell, WDFW has applied some 45 different management actions to attempt to address the issue. These efforts include increased hunting, issuance of damage tags to afflicted landowners, and non-lethal measures, such as hazing and fencing. Despite these efforts, instances of elk intrusion have continued to increase, resulting in damages of surprising proportions.
In an effort to assess the damage, Skagit County commissioners began surveying farmers and ranchers in the valley to determine the level of elk damage each had experienced. With 80 percent of the surveys returned as of February, more than $1.1 million in damages had been logged for 2018. According to commissioners, when all surveys are returned, it is estimated the total financial damage to area farmers will be at least $1.5 million annually.
“That’s just the farmers,” says Good, who points out that there are also approximately 800 to 1,000 residential homes and small acreages in the Skagit Valley, none of whom were included in the survey.
“You can’t raise a garden here anymore,” he says. “People’s orchards are getting stripped clean. There’s a 650-acre blueberry farm up here that has had 100,000 pounds of blueberries eaten.”
Like many of his neighbors, Good also indicates that he has pastures he can no longer use, mostly due to an inability to keep the fences up.
“I ended up having to rent it out to a dairy farmer neighbor,” he explains. “I’ve lost out on a lot of income, all due to elk intrusion.”
According to Good, WDFW’s mitigation efforts have so far been a near total failure. The problem, he says, is that there are simply too many elk to be deterred.
“There’s so many they’ve become domesticated,” he says. “Hazing doesn’t work, and hunting doesn’t either.” Neither, he says, do the damage permits, which typically allow a landowner to shoot one elk in an effort to deter the others. “You can shoot one, and the others just watch it drop,” he says.
Compensation not the answer
In addition to their mitigation efforts, WDFW does provide a compensation program, which can provide funding to relieve afflicted landowners. However, according to WDFW records, there have been no applicants for these funds since 2016. The reason for this, says Good, is a cumbersome application process that all but prevents landowners from taking part.
“There’s a reason nobody is filing claims,” he says. “They’ve set it up so you can’t.”
In order to qualify for compensation, a landowner must qualify as a commercial producer. Under state law, this means proving that the property has earned at least $10,000 in gross receipts in the previous year. While WDFW states that this requirement is needed to prevent frivolous claims, landowners argue that this not only excludes the region’s many small property owners, but also those larger operations that have experienced damage over multiple years.
“How are they supposed to qualify if the elk have eaten all of their income?” says Good. Additionally, he says, landowners balk at being required to provide their tax returns to the government, though WDFW stresses that only the portion proving farm income is required.
Perhaps most unpalatable, however, is the requirement that landowners open their property to public hunting in order to qualify for damage compensation. According to WDFW, this is done on a case-by-case basis. Wildlife conflict specialists, they say, work closely with landowners to determine what level of hunting, if any, is appropriate. The relevant state law, however, does state that, in order to qualify for compensation, a landowner may be required to open their property to general access hunting, something that Good says prevents most landowners in the area from wanting to take part.
A bill altering the compensation program has recently been introduced. Among other changes, the bill would double the maximum payout to $20,000, and require the state to pay for an appraiser to assess the damage, a cost currently split with the landowner.
While Good indicates that these changes would be welcome, the qualification requirements would remain unchanged. “The legislation isn’t going to help much at all if they don’t change the requirements to file a claim,” he says.
Good is fond of quoting another Washington state law, one that says, in part, that the actions of WDFW shall not infringe on private property rights.
“All we’re asking is for WDFW to follow the law and manage their animals,” he says. “It’s gotten out of control, and I don’t think they care.” — Jason Campbell, WLJ correspondent
