Although fewer elk were killed in Grand Teton National Park’s 2012 elk reduction program than in any of the past 50, ending the hunt would have major consequences, park officials say.

Hunters killed 183 cows and calves in the eight-week season that ended Sunday. That’s considerably lower than the goal of 300.

The number of licenses available also was the lowest since 1960, when there was no hunt. This year 725 licenses were available.

Some point to mild weather, fewer licenses and increasingly wily elk as the reasons for the decline. For the first time, the hunt didn’t include bulls.

That makes it difficult to compare it from a biological perspective with previous hunts, Grand Teton senior wildlife biologist Steve Cain said.

This year elk hunters killed a grizzly, a protected species. It was the first ever gunned down during the hunt and was shot by a party that stumbled on it near an elk carcass.

The Thanksgiving Day shooting near Schwabachers Landing renewed calls for ending or restricting the controversial program, the only one of its type in a national park.

Stopping the hunt would slow reduction of the Jackson Elk Herd and cause the park’s summering elk population to balloon, three Grand Teton employees said Tuesday. They rebutted criticism the hunt is dangerous and outdated.

Feeding fosters need for hunt

The reason for needing a park hunt is “simply the population itself,” Cain said. “The Jackson Elk Herd is the largest elk herd in the world. It probably has a management framework that’s more complex than any other elk herd.

“A lot of that has to do with the supplemental feeding on the {National Elk] Refuge and the feedgrounds,” he said. “We don’t have the luxury of managing in a vacuum.

“Since winter range is in limited supply, it drives all of the management numbers,” he said. “It’s an interesting program, because in Jackson Hole they drive the winter range in on semitrucks.”

The Grand Teton herd, estimated at 1,600 to 2,000 wapiti, is a portion of the  Jackson herd — 11,000-plus animals — that winters on the elk refuge, in the Gros Ventre River drainage and on lands nearby.

The park’s population has hovered near its 1,600 objective, Cain said. That was established by an environmental impact statement in 2007.

Hunting and predators have kept the park portion in check, he said. Wolves and bears are the primary predators.

The park program maintains balance in the Jackson Elk Herd, Cain said. Without it, elk would flock to the park as a hunt-free refuge, Cain said.

Managers, including the Wyoming Game and Fish Department, seek a mix of elk from a variety of summer ranges, including the Teton Wilderness, southern Yellowstone and the Gros Ventre Mountains.

Hunt authorized by law

Those herd segments have become relatively smaller compared with the component in Grand Teton and on private lands south of the park. Game and Fish seeks to provide hunting opportunities as part of its mission.

“It’s clear that if you did close the park to hunting it would extremely complicate management,” Cain said.

One obstacle in shutting the hunt down is language in the 1950 enabling legislation that formed the park, spokeswoman Jackie Skaggs said.

The law authorizes a “program to insure the permanent conservation of the elk within the ... park,” the legislation reads. “Such program shall include the controlled reduction of elk ... by hunters licensed by the state of Wyoming and deputized as rangers by the secretary of the interior, when it is found necessary for the purpose of proper management and protection of the elk.”

Permits and harvest objectives are formed jointly by the park and Wyoming Game and Fish Department in an annual recommendation to the secretary of the interior and the Wyoming governor.

Safety issues brought to light by the grizzly killing aren’t particular to the park, Skaggs said.

“This is one of the most highly managed programs that you would run across,” she said of the park’s hunting regulations. “We don’t allow the use of handguns or archery equipment. We don’t allow people to use elk calls. ... We’re the only unit in the ecosystem that requires hunters to use bear spray.”

Hunters who took part in this year’s hunt receive a handout on bear safety.

“During the Elk Reduction Program,” it reads, “the availability of carcasses and gut piles can bring grizzly bears and hunters into close proximity in highly visible locations. Some bears will vigorously defend gut piles.”

Since September there have been six other “human-caused, under-investigation” grizzly bear mortalities in Wyoming that are likely related to hunter encounters, a Northern Rocky Mountain Science Center database shows.