Where are all the elk? According to the recently released study referenced in the article "Where are all the elk?" in the Aug. 6 edition of the Mountain Express, elk populations are affected by four major factors: habitat, weather, predators and human hunters. There is a fifth factor. This study failed to recognize the significance of the position of wolf advocates. Their position of an uncontrolled wolf population kills far more elk each year than all of the human hunters in Idaho, Montana and Wyoming combined.
Where are they? They got dead. The notion that "prey and predator find their own balance" is absurd. The odds against elk as prey are skewed heavily against them. To become survivors as an ecosystem animal population entity, elk need intense management. And so do wolves.
Wolf advocates need to get in touch and recognize the political misdirection they have exhibited in influencing elk population downward trends.
Gary Busch
Ketchum