On the North Coast, a collaborative approach to elk
Katie Frankowicz, The Daily Astorian, Ore.
Fri, September 3, 2021, 7:47 PM
Sep. 3—State Sen. Betsy Johnson and more than a dozen other stakeholders, including timberland managers, mayors, hunters and conservationists, signed off Wednesday on the first unified approach to dealing with urban elk on the North Coast.
Elk herds in the Clatsop Plains, an increasingly developed area that stretches from Warrenton to Gearhart and includes part of Seaside, have grown over the years, leading to concerns about safety and conservation. Community debates about the best way to address elk-related issues have often been divisive.
The declaration of cooperation that the Clatsop Plains Elk Collaborative signed Wednesday is the result of a multiyear effort to get on the same page.
The document lists a number of strategies and commitments to address the elk. The recommendations include increased educational outreach to visitors and residents about living with elk and how to avoid interactions with the wild animals, the possibility of opening elk hunts in new areas, changes to local rules and policies, land use questions, fencing, enhanced wildlife corridors and an elk festival in Warrenton, among others.
The elk festival would be one of the easiest things to accomplish right away, Warrenton Mayor Henry Balensifer said. But communities are unlikely to see an immediate change in how officials address elk-related safety and nuisance concerns. The process of vetting, researching and implementing the strategies and proposals could take several years.
Oregon Solutions
Gov. Kate Brown designated the elk collaborative as an Oregon Solutions project in 2019, an important tag that boosted the priority of the work and opened the door to state funding. The toolkit the group developed will help others in Oregon who face similar wildlife conflicts, the governor wrote in a letter of appreciation to the members Wednesday.
"This feels like the end, but it is really the beginning of very hard work," Johnson, D-Scappoose, said in her own remarks to the group.
Each stakeholder has agreed to their own list of recommendations and actions, but the goal is to continue to work together. Certain initiatives will require a high degree of continued cooperation, community engagement and some outside funding, stakeholders said.
Culling — always a controversial proposal — remains on the table, but will take some time to implement and requires more data and community outreach. Warrenton plans to pursue hunting as an option to control urban herds, however.
Balensifer anticipates some trepidation about wildlife management in city limits, but exactly how the city will proceed with such management involves questions that have not been answered yet, he said.
Any culling activities will occur outside city limits first.
"I do think as we learn from that, that will inform practices closer and inside," Balensifer said.
He expects the City Commission will tackle other issues first, though, such as reexamining Warrenton's wildlife feeding ordinance and how it is being enforced.
Gearhart City Administrator Chad Sweet expects some of the recommendations city leaders agreed to will begin to appear on meeting agendas in the near future.
There are some items the city can begin to tackle sooner rather than later, he said. Things like reviewing sections of the city code that deal with fences, providing information about types of landscapes that deter elk from an area rather than entice them, or installing more educational signs.
Data
Then there are other proposals that will require more research and a more nuanced understanding of herd movements. In many cases, this data is still being collected and analyzed. In some areas, it has not been collected at all.
This winter, staff at Lewis and Clark National Historical Park plan to analyze various data tied to elk movement in and around the park.
For around a dozen years, park rangers and volunteers have tracked herd movements through elk pellet monitoring and driving surveys. Beginning in 2020, rangers worked with state wildlife experts to fit six elk across three different herds with radio collars.
While they have managed to get collars on elk in two different herds that range around Camp Rilea and the Astoria Regional Airport, they were not able to collar elk in a herd that travels into the park from the south. These elk have proven more elusive, said Carla Cole, chief of resources at the park.
The final two collars instead went to elk that wander the coast between Sunset Beach and Gearhart.
After the combined pellet, driving survey and radio collar data is analyzed, Cole hopes to have more concrete information about elk movement by early 2022.
Members of the elk collaborative do not expect to find a one-size-fits-all solution to the issues connected to the elk herds. The key is to remain flexible and in close touch with one another, they said.
Vanessa Blackstone, a wildlife ecologist and member of the elk collaborative who previously worked for the state, cautioned the group on Wednesday, "As we find solutions that fail, remain open-minded to find the ones that will succeed."