In plain sight

Two weeks into bow season and hunters are already complaining that the elk are seeking refuge on private land.

It’s an old story. Elk all over the place until the hunters show up and then the only place you can find them is where you can’t hunt them.

I remember years ago driving across deeded land in Tom Miner Basin to reach a National Forest access. It was a drive best made when it was still dark because then you couldn’t see all the elk you were passing. The local game warden spent most of his days during the season patrolling that one ranch. He always cited a few hunters who gave in to temptation and shot elk where they shouldn’t have.

Now the situation has worsened. Whether you blame encroaching development, wolves, or an increase in hunter numbers, elk seem to be getting smarter at finding refuge where hunters can’t reach them.

And these safe havens aren’t the hidey holes deep in the dark timber where they used to disappear. These days most elk apparently prefer to hide in plain sight. Take a drive through Paradise Valley and you’ll often see herds of elk on the riverbottom hay meadows in the middle of the day.

That used to be a common sight during the winter, but now the elk are there in the summer, too.

It’s almost as if something ran them out of the mountains. My guess would be wolves, but the wolf experts always point to other factors – drought, hunting, phases of the moon, climate change.

Perhaps the elk are simply getting smarter. I’ve been told that elk in the Missouri Breaks move onto private land about the same time the bow hunters start setting up camp. Once the season is over the elk drift back to the accessible areas of the Breaks.

It’s the same with a lot of new housing developments on the edge of National Forest land. Often that property used to be ranchland where hunting was allowed. Now that it’s chopped up into ranchettes, only trophy homes grow there, and nobody gets to hunt. That suits the elk just fine. They can feed on the manicured lawns and hedges in relative safety until the absentee landowners complain and FWP has to try to disperse the herd with cracker shells.

There appear to be no easy answers. Elk numbers are on the rise. Hunters are anxious as ever to get at them, but they too often can’t.

It’s an old story that won’t go away.

Parker Heinlein is at

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