The West Green River Elk herd is regionally significant because it is one of the few herds in Wyoming that does not receive supplemental winter feed and is free of brucellosis. The State of Wyoming manages this herd by regulating the timing, location, and extent of hunting. This may indirectly impact the vegetation on which elk depend by influencing their abundance and seasonal distribution. Federal land management practices such as grazing, prescribed fire, and sagebrush control are often designed to alter habitat conditions and may influence available forage. Understanding how elk utilize these high elevation, sagebrush steppe communities will aid state biologists’ efforts to meet herd management objectives while simultaneously protecting federally managed resources. Collaborative research with the National Park Service, Bureau of Land Management, US Fish and Wildlife Service, US Forest Service, and Wyoming Game and Fish Department seeks to identify the influence of land management practices on the distribution and movement patterns of this segment of the West Green River Herd.

Over 70 elk have been radio collared on Fossil Butte National Monument and neighboring Bureau of Land Management lands near Cokeville, Wyoming, since 2005. The collars allow the elks’ movement to be tracked via GPS systems. Collars are equipped with a prescheduled release mechanism and a VHS beacon that allows scientists to track and collect the collars after they fall off the animal. Collars remained on each animal for three years and thus far have produced nearly 210,000 locations documenting elk use.

Understanding the timing of elk movements is as equally important as knowing where they move. This is especially true for Fossil Butte National Monument. High elk use may have a significant impact on vegetation. While cattle grazing on the Monument was discontinued in 1989, land managers remain concerned about the impact of high densities of overwintering elk. Researchers found that the timing of elk movement appears linked to the hunting season. Elk move onto the Monument in the fall when archery hunting begins and move off of the Monument in the spring.

Credits and Sources:

“Elk on the Landscape: Investigating the influence of land management practices on elk spatial ecology,” U.S. Geological Survey, http://www.nps.gov/fobu/learn/nature/upload/Olexa_090210_FINAL.pdf, Accessed June 29, 2015.