The city of Sun Valley should post a sign that says, "Welcome to the American West." It's home on the range over there, where the deer and the antelope play.
Predators have been stalking and killing elk in a herd that was once fed on private property by private individuals and organizations. Feeding ended when residents complained about elk munching their expensive landscaping and threatened lawsuits.
Still, the elk still roam where they've always roamed, but now they have a pack of visitors with big teeth that are competing with mountain lions and coyotes for a place at the lunch counter.
In response, Sun Valley Mayor Wayne Willich convened a bizarre non-meeting meeting of the City Council, biologists with the Idaho Department of Fish and Game, and around 50 onlookers. He allowed no one to speak but himself.
He delivered a sermon in which he denounced Fish and Game's statewide policy of not feeding big game and called for a new private feeding effort to lure the Elkhorn elk herd to a remote ridge in order to keep predators out of the city limits.
The fact that the mayor's wife heads up a group that wants to restore feeding was an interesting twist in all this.
Mayor Willich said he wants council members to do something about wolves and lions stalking snowbound elk within sight of residents' picture windows.
Fish and Game biologists rightly insisted after the meeting that feeding is exactly the wrong thing to do if the herd and the predators are to disperse. Feeding will grow both herd numbers and the number of predators that feed on it.
For proof, witness the explosion of the mangy fox population in the same city where residents delight in feeding them. More hotdogs, more foxes.
Sun Valley isn't a zoo. Residents can't have unprotected landscaping, zero predators and elk herds, too.
The city's not an urban center. It sits in the foothills of the Pioneer Mountains adjacent to the biggest wilderness areas outside Alaska. Complaining about wildlife here is like complaining about city traffic—it's just part of life.
If the mayor really wants to reduce the number of predators in town, he should start with a ban on hotdogs to reduce the number of foxes with the city.
As for wolves and mountain lions, he should support moving the elk to areas with better forage.
If not, then Willich and his supporters should learn to track, hunt and shoot. They could reduce the predator population, support game management with purchases of hunting licenses and predator tags, protect their kids and pets, and acknowledge that they live in the American West—not downtown Seattle.
