There will be no elk feeding program in Sun Valley this year after the Sun Valley Elkhorn Association chose not to allow the Wood River Elk Trust to set up a feeding program on property it owns on a ridge between Fireweed and Paintbrush roads in Elkhorn.
At an association meeting on Sept. 25, the elk trust proposed an alternative to feeding elk at The Community School's barn on Sagewillow Road. A longtime feeding operation was terminated in 2007 after a conflict with neighboring homeowners who argued that the feeding was bringing elk into residential neighborhoods. Sagewillow Road resident Chris Leady said elk caused about $240,000 in damage to landscaping throughout the neighborhood.
The Community School had been feeding the elk ever since it received the barn and surrounding property as a gift from longtime Sun Valley resident and philanthropist Ed Dumke. Dumke also bequeathed to the school his longstanding tradition of feeding elk that winter on the property, which he had been doing since the 1970s.
However, the Sun Valley Elkhorn Association decided shortly after the Sept. 25 meeting not to allow the proposal and instead follow the opinion of the Idaho Department of Fish and Game, which said that if the elk were not fed, they would eventually return to natural nearby winter ranges.
Fish and Game Magic Valley Regional Wildlife Biologist Regan Berkley said it would probably take about five years of no feeding for the elk to move away from the area and into Independence, Parker and Keystone gulches. She said the elk would probably continue to eat landscaping during that time.
Sun Valley Mayor Wayne Willich, whose wife is a member of the elk trust, said the decision not to feed could lead to elk starving in the Elkhorn area this winter.
"We will have some carcasses out there this winter that will need to get hauled away," Willich predicted in an interview. "If cougars and wolves start wandering down, then the city will have to step in and so something. We're going to have to watch this experiment carefully."
Jon Duval: jduval@mtexpress.com
