I had indicated in our last segment that we would be addressing common reasons given for excluding sportsmen from the parks in this article. Instead, I have decided to put that off until the next, and final, segment because there is one other important consideration that screams for attention.
When we ask ourselves the question…
Should hunting be allowed in national parks?
... we need to discuss finances.
A MATTER OF MONEY
There was an interesting article in the September 17, 2003 issue of the Jackson Hole News & Guide, which is my local paper. This article can help set the tone.
Excerpt:
Overall, association business plans show that on average national parks are operating with only two-thirds of needed funding.
The article talked about all maner of expense factors from road maintenance to law enforcement to educational programs for visitors. The problem the parks face was pretty obvious – they are living beyond their means.
The plan coming out of the Park Service study, and which was highlighted in this article, was that the Service needed to take more of a private sector approach to solving its budget woes. The title of the article summarized the concept nicely. It said:
Yellowstone to run like business
That is a concept I can support. A successful business maximizes income, minimizes expenses and operates using black ink rather than red – or it closes it doors. That is how it works in the private sector.
The problem with the Park Service approach is they never did learn how to run like a business. They have a unique procedure to maximizing income not found in the private sector. They simply raise the income side of the ledger through more taxes and higher entrance fees. They fall far short of private sector standards when it comes to minimizing expenses, as well.
Analyzing park operations on the whole would fill several books but we can certainly look at the single issue of wildlife management in an abbreviated format. So let’s look at the dollars and cents concerning our wildlife populations and the way they are managed on government owned lands.
Keep in mind that, while the main topic is our national parks, these problems exist in state parks, wildlife management areas, refuges, and so forth. The problems and the solutions are universal.
According to figures secured from the National Wilderness Institute, over 900 million acres in the United States are owned by state and federal governments. Of those, more than 75 million acres are managed under the authority of the National Park Service. Within a huge portion of these lands the wildlife are protected from hunting, trapping and, in many cases, even fishing.
Because of this isolation from the predator/prey relationship (we are predators, after all) our wildlife populations on these lands have exploded and the costs of management and mismanagement are staggering.
According to the International Association of Fish and Wildlife Agencies the economic damage caused by wildlife is currently estimated to be worth approximately $22 billion. Without hunting and trapping as control measures, they estimate that number could climb to $70 billion.
Even when looking at isolated areas, the numbers begin to add up quickly. In example, according to the Wildlife Services Program report put out by the Government Accounting Office the damage done by coyotes, black bears and mountain lions to the livestock industry in California has been nearly $2 million, $1.5 million in both Colorado and Idaho, $1.6 million in New Mexico, nearly $2 million in Utah, and over $5.6 million in Wyoming.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture estimates that wildlife strikes from large birds and other animals cost the civil aviation industry in excess of $470 million annually and the economic damage caused by beavers in the southeastern U.S. alone was estimated at over $4 billion over a 40-year period.
According to a study by the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety there were 1.5 million deer/vehicle crashes in 2003 that injured over 13,000 people and caused $1.1 billion in vehicle damage.
These dollars come out of our pockets directly as well as through our taxes but they are also paid by us through higher costs to do business, higher consumer prices, higher insurance rates, more costly food products, higher health care costs, and on, and on, and on.
The programs put together by our parks, our communities and our wildlife managment agencies to address these issues are also costing us a bundle of money in direct personnel wages, equipment and more.
Here are some examples of the “solutions” to these wildlife overpopulation problems.
Through January of this year the Cleveland Metroparks has used sharpshooters to cull 1,950 deer at a cost of $341,250. A private contractor quoted Ohio’s Claremont County up to $450 per head for a similar service, and according to recent news reports Solon, Ohio is paying more than $500 per head to cull overpopulated deer herds within their community.
In a report published in December of last year by the Ipswich Chronicle, Massachusetts’s residents were paying from $75 to $100 to remove a single problem beaver. It is anticipated that 10 percent of the beaver population must be removed each year to maintain acceptable population levels. That will require harvesting more than 50,000 beavers annually.
Do the math.
Iowa City, Iowa paid sharpshooters $75,000 last year to kill 200 deer while the Conservation Commission of Greenwich, Connecticut recently asked for an increase of $47,000 to its consulting budget for sharpshooters to remove deer from three of their parks. Upper St. Clair in Pennsylvania also recently agreed to pay $20,000 to a federal “deer SWAT team” for the removal of 80 deer.
Within Point Reyes National Seashore there is currently a population of approximately 1,150 non-native deer of two species (axis and fallow). The Park Service has determined that the deer need to go. This isn’t a new problem. For about a 20-year period, ending in 1994, the park culled approximately 3,500 animals.
Depending upon which option the Park decides to use in its Non-Native Deer Management Plan, they could shoot approximately 3,500 more deer by the year 2020 and about 10,000 would be shot by the year 2065. The cost of this program would be approximately $8.5 million and the population would simply be maintained at “acceptable” levels.
However, not all our government agencies shoot problem animals. Some of the more enlightened use “non-lethal” control methods.
A private contractor in Connecticut recently secured an $8,000 contract for a birth control program to tag and vaccinate a “small herd” of deer while a similar program is being discussed at Point Reyes National Seashore.
A quote from an article in the San Francisco Chronicle in February goes like this:
We do plan to use vaccines in our removal program, Gates said. But given the realities of the situation, it’s unlikely we could ever vaccinate more than 25 percent of the animals.
However, in a recent review of that same Non-Native Deer Management Plan with the public the Park Service indicated that, in order to keep the herds stable, 80 percent of the females would have to be treated. The cost to treat with contraceptives under this plan – $3,000 per animal.
A 1994 story in Jackson Hole Magazine reported that vaccinating elk on feedgrounds with “bio bullets” to help prevent the spread of brucellosis cost the State of Wyoming $100,000 for a single winter.
Finally, the Hanford Ranch National Monument in Washington State has also been dealing with the problem of too many elk. They estimate that trapping and relocating those animals will cost from $350 to $680 per head.
Putting this in proper perspective also means realizing that most of these culling operations must be performed on an annual basis and they are taking place all across the nation.
Remember the quote from Part Three?
Excerpt:
In all, 26,400 park elk were removed from 1923 to 1968.
That was for one national park – Yellowstone.
Again, do the math.
That represents just a brief glimpse at the expense side. Yet, with all these dollars being poured into wildlife reduction programs the problem is getting worse.
The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel printed an article in June of last year stating:
Scientists at the University of Wisconsin-Madison have found significant losses of native plant species in northern Wisconsin forests over the past 50 years – a trend that could have profound effect on the future landscape of the state.
Excerpt:
The culprit: All signs point to Wisconsin’s teeming white-tailed deer population.
In December, The Saratogian followed with a report on the conditions in New York when they wrote:
The state’s overabundant deer population is causing major environmental problems that could take decades to reverse, park officials said Wednesday.
That same month the Colorado Division of Wildlife issued a press release indicating that the desired elk population in GMU 82 is 1,500 animals but the actual population is closer to 5,000.
Excerpt:
The population growth has occurred in large part due to a lack of access for hunters because the elk find refuge on large pieces of property in and around the Baca Grande and Great Sand Dunes National Park properties.
And just to the north problems have also been identified with elk in Rocky Mountain National Park. Here, too, the issue is as much one of environmental concern as anything else. From the L.A. Times in December of 2004:
Excerpt:
Within the national park about 60 miles northwest of Denver, the elk have reduced willows to pitiful stumps and devoured so many young aspen shoots that scientists warn the most scenic stands could disappear.
The costs already discussed that relate to wildlife overpopulation issues are huge. Add to these all the dollars spent to mitigate environmental damage through habitat rejuvenation projects and the numbers simply become mind numbing.
The Park Service is supposed to be looking at things from a business perspective, remember?
Expenses need to be minimized and much of that can be done at the same time that income is maximized. Sportsmen will pay, and in some cases handsomely, for the privilege of reducing overpopulated wildlife numbers. This is not a statement based upon speculation.
The bison herd located on the National Elk Refuge and within Grand Teton National Park in northwest Wyoming is partially managed through a hunt. Because of legal wrangling that is still ongoing, no hunting is done within the Park borders but bison from this herd are hunted on public and private lands adjacent to the park.
Residents pay $331 for a crack at one of these freight trains of the prairie and non-residents pay $2,101 for the same privilege. An elk hunt that takes place on the National Elk Refuge draws license fees comparable to those paid for hunting elsewhere in the state.
Using a license process comparable to that found in the state where each park is located would certainly turn the tide from spending money to making money while reducing animal populations.
And premium prices could be gained from special tags or special hunts. Those dollars can address other issues.
Examples abound.
Arizona Game & Fish issued a news release in February of this year explaining that the Mule Deer Foundation (MDF) auctioned off an Arizona statewide speical mule deer tag for the price of $134,000.
Think about this for just one moment. With that single tag, MDF earned approximately the same amount of money that Iowa City, Iowa, Greenwich, Connecticut and Upper St. Clair, Pennsylvania spent on their combined culling programs!
Utah has a similar program that started in 1991 when they auctioned one tag for a desert bighorn sheep for $20,000. The program now includes bidding on 341 permits within the Bee Hive State. In 2004, MDF raised $126,045 through this program while Sportsmen for Fish and Wildlife (SFW) raised an incredible $800,000.
A great benefit found in the Utah program is that 30 percent of these funds go directly to DOW for research, transplants and habitat restoration projects. Of the 70 percent kept by MDF and SFW, 60 percent must be used for conservation projects within Utah.
What a boon this kind of program would be for our parks.
Wyoming also has a program that works in a similar fashion. Each year the governor is allowed 20 complimentary big game licenses. In the last two years, those tags raised $730,000 for wildlife-related projects within the state.
Finally, a program of this nature exists in Mexico, as well, where highly prized tags are sold to sportsmen for a chance to hunt desert bighorn within the Vizcaino Biosphere in southern Baja. Because of the economic value that these sheep now represent to the peoples of that region, they are taking better care of the environment and the sheep that live there.
Far from being an overpopulation issue in this instance, the bighorn here have been considered threatened with extinction. In illustration of the value of proper hunting programs, in just seven years, the population of desert bighorn within the biosphere has doubled because selectively hunting them brings prosperity to those who live here – the caretakers of the land.
The tags in this program are sold by the Foundation for North American Sheep (FNAWS). Currently, they auction approximately 25 to 30 permits per year in a variety of U.S., Canadian and Mexican states and generate more than $2 million annually.
This money helps the economies where the hunting takes place, funds projects to improve habitat conditions and brings to the sporting community additional opportunities to enjoy the outdoor world.
If Yellowstone, and other public land, is truly to be run like a business – the choice seems clear.
We can continue to flush our tax dollars into programs that do not work, we can continue to deal with the economic repercussions of wildlife overpopulation, and we can continue to watch our “crown jewel” ecosystems crumble under their own weight…
Or we can turn to sportsmen, alleviate the problems, practice fiscal responsibility and have a good time in the process.
In our final article in this series, Hunting In The Parks – Part Five, we will examine the most common reasons given for excluding sportsmen from our parks.
Then it will be time to answer the question…
Should hunting be allowed in national parks?