Some of the Players

hunters lindahl & tuck Ed Lindahl and Rich Tuck are both members of a group called Concerned Sportsmen of Idaho. They remember the good old days on the Clearwater and are convinced that both predators and habitat are to blame for the decline of the Clearwater elk numbers.

"We've both seen what the elk herds used to be. Back in the 1980's, for example, Unit 10 used to have 45 calves survive per 100 cows each year. Now it's been down as low as six," says Rick Tuck. "If you don't have any calves, your elk herds just plummet tremendously. And that's what's going on up here."

ed lindahl"Fish and Game data in Units 10 and 12, the Lolo Zone, shows that the elk herd is down 55%. That's 9,000 elk. That's a catastrophic decline, and it's not getting any better. Our Clearwater regional supervisor tells us it's declining five and ten percent a year right now... A calf study shows that 95% of all calf mortality is caused by predators."

"It's a two stage process," says Ed Lindahl. "We have to first liberate our elk from a predator pit that many of them find themselves in, this combination of mountain lions, black bears and wolves. But secondly, if we ever are to expect to have robust elk herds again, we need to create habitat that is ready for them to move into."

rich tuck"We've had a good response from Fish & Game, with more tags for mountain lions and bears...We've gotten very little response from the U.S. Forest Service."

"We're tied up with bad law, or good law poorly employed, bad regulations, and bad policy... There are no consequences to people who simply study or analyze, and then get paralyzed."

According to Rich Tuck, "Fish & Game did a study on the value of elk to the local economy; and it showed that, when an elk is harvested, that one elk alone brings in $7,000 to the local economy, because it takes many people to harvest that one elk. You're talking millions of dollars in the Clearwater being lost each year.

"For example, in the Lolo Zone alone, we used to harvest on average between 1000 and 1200 elk. Now it's down to 200 per year. Eighty percent reduction. What's suffering is the local businessman."