The Sierra Club has asked that the Grand Teton National Park complete yet another environmental review of its annual elk hunt. The group cites “changing conditions” since the park last completed a study in 2007 as the reason they want hundreds or thousands of taxpayer dollars again spent on the review.
The request was delivered as a letter to GTNP park officials and claims that the annual elk hunts habituate grizzly bears to eating gut piles and puts park visitors at risk. A pair of photographers urged the Sierra Club to send the letter. There was no report of whether the photographers had the required federal permits to take images on public lands as professionals, and definitely no mention that the Sierra Club hosts winter trips into Grand Teton and the vicinity with travel packages starting at $2500/person.
Grand Teton Superintendent Mary Gibson Scott reportedly responded to the Sierra Club’s request letter that their concerns about elk hunts had already been reviewed and that no additional steps would be taken.
Grand Teton’s 61-year-old annual elk hunt was created by Congressional legislation in 1950. Called an “elk reduction program,” the program enables federal, state and park wildlife managers to authorize the hunting of elk in Grand Teton to reduce the park’s elk population to a goal of 1,600. To update a management plan for bison and elk in Jackson Hole, the park, the National Elk Refuge and the Wyoming Game and Fish Dept. conducted an environmental review of hunting, feeding and population objectives in 2007.
Last fall about 750 elk hunting permits were issued and hunters killed about 250 elk in the park’s reduction program.
