Game & Fish West

WHEN CONSERVATION IS TOO SUCCESSFUL

He Montana rancher’s message was blunt and abundantly clear. He would be attending the Fish and Game Commission’s meeting on elk management in Helena, the state capital, but first he needed to find a place to dump the two cow elk he had shot out of his haystacks.

The elk season had long been closed, and the rancher’s action normally would be defined as poaching. Only the man didn’t shoot the elk out of any joy of killing, or for their trophy parts, or even as a covert crime. The rancher reported his action, after all. Instead, the act was interpreted as one more incident in a growing impatience with elk management in Montana.

In essence, there are too many elk in many places hunters can’t access, and too

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