Park Service to track RMNP elk population

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With winter beginning to grip Rocky Mountain National Park, National Park Service researchers are beginning a five-month survey of the park's elk population, which has been decreasing during the past decade or so.

Studying and managing the park's elk herd presents challenges here because some of the elk's preferred browsing areas are showing signs of serious damage from overuse. The elk also pay little respect to political boundaries, spreading not only throughout the eastern half of the park, but into and around the Estes Valley, where they are managed by the Colorado Division of Wildlife.

"It's a pretty fluid group," park biologist Therese Johnson said.

During the next five months, researchers will take to the air in helicopters and planes to count the elk, refine methods for counting, classify them by age and gender and find out how they're distributed throughout the park.

In addition to getting a head count, the survey will help researchers understand how elk are using habitat within the park.

The size of the elk herd peaked in the late 1990s at between 2,800 and 3,500 elk. Herd estimates have declined since then to between 1,600 and 2,100 elk, Johnson said.

Research on the population is necessary annually because the herd size sometimes fluctuates dramatically from year to year, park spokeswoman Kyle Patterson said.