Yellowstone's Northern Range - Greater Yellowstone Science ...

HISTORY OF RESEARCH AND MANAGEMENT
was to regulate and manage Yellowstone's northern
range so that its production of elk was more or less
unvarying and predictable, and so that winter
mortality did not occur or was kept to some ideal
minimum.
In the 1920s and 1930s, coucern over the
condition of the range grew, as the elk population
was repeatedly described as too large. Other
aspects of the northern range came to the attention
of observers. Skinner (1929) reported a decline in
the park's white-tailed deer population, from 100 at
the beginning of the 1900s to essentially none by
the late 1920s. In 1931, Talbot reported an increase
in exotic plant species and erosion, attributing these
to overgrazing (Tyers 1981).
The most important of these investigations
was conducted by U.S. Forest Service biologist W.
M. Rush (1927, 1932). Based on horseback trips
through part of the northern Yellowstone elk winter
range in 1914 and 1927, Rush concluded that
drought and grazing had lowered range carrying
capacity, that erosion was widespread, that exotics
continued to invade, and that all browse species
would be lost if something were not done. Houston
(1982) pointed out that "Rush recognized the
cursory and subjective nahlre of his range assessments,
a fact which seems to have been overlooked
7
in subsequent references to his findings." Tyers
(1981) and Houston (1982) summarized the work
done by subsequent National Park Service biologists,
especially R. Grimm and W. Kittams between
1933 and 1958, both of whom generally supported
Rush's conclusions. By the early 1960s, the
"Yellowstone elk problem" had become one of the
longest-standing dilemmas in American wildlife
management history. In June 1963, Cooper et al.
made a 12-day survey of the northern range and
estimated a winter elk carrying capacity of about
5,000, in keeping with several earlier estimates and
using standards usually applied to domestic
livestock grazing (Cooper et al. 1963).
From the 1920s to the 1960s, northern
Yellowstone elk were trapped and shipped alive to
re-stock depleted game ranges all over North
America (Figure 1.7). In attempts to control or
reduce the elk population (see carrying capacity,
below) elk were also shot by park rangers and the
meat was shipped to Indian reservations. In all,
26,400 park elk were removed from 1923 to 1968.
From the mid-1930s to the mid-1960s, bison and
pronghorn were also reduced in numbers or
otherwise manipulated on the northern range.
The long-term monitoring conducted by
Kittams until the late 1950s was followed by more
Figure 1.7. Loading
live elk at the
Gardiner Depot,
1935. Elk were
transported live from
Yellowstone to restock
elk ranges in many
other parts of the
United States. NPS
photo.