Elk 1

If we could say one thing to describe Cooke City it would be, “old-fashioned.” The town is set in between two mountains on the road that leads in and out of the Northeast entrance of Yellowstone National Park. This is the only road open during the winter so the population significantly decreases, going from about 350 people to 88.  The town is pretty much confined to the sides of this road. Most people live either directly behind the stores, in very small houses, or in apartments above the stores they own.

When we fist arrived, we spent some time in the Visitor’s Center where we learned a little about the history of the town. In looking at the displays, we learned that it is a former mining town that has transformed itself to capitalize on the tourism brought by YNP. Also, in the Visitor’s Center, we saw public documents informing tourists about the proper distances to be kept between themselves and the wildlife. One document that stood out to us was a “selfie pledge” that encouraged tourists not to take selfies with the animals, which we later learned geared toward the Asian tourists.

https://www.instagram.com/p/BUp03mVjBus/?taken-by=elk1luynp

Walking down the street, we observed that most of the buildings looked like they were stuck in time. Many of them were made of wood and had clear aesthetic damage. All of the hotels in the area were locally owned, not chains, which says that the locals are heavily invested in the tourist economy. Another thing we observed was that most of the business were restaurants or bars, which shows the impacts of tourism on the economy.

Our next stop was at a local convenient store where we spoke with the shop owner who had lived in Cooke City for his whole life. He said that growing up he had and hour and a half trip to school and during the winter the first eight miles was travelled by snow mobile. He also told us that there were only four children in the school right now. This just speaks to how difficult it can be to live in a small town. One of the things that we were most worried about was the fact that there was no cell phone service. He told us that they have never had service and at one point AT&T tried to put a tower in the middle of town, but the town voted it down. He said that everyone there has a landline and two years ago they got dial up internet. We noticed that when we were walking around there were signs for public phones and phone booths for tourists.

https://www.instagram.com/p/BUpymOTjLyq/?taken-by=elk1luynp

Finally, we finished our visit by walking through the shops lining the street. Many of them were very small and had few customers, but were very obviously geared toward tourists as the sold memorabilia related to the park. Additionally, most of the restaurants were built like bars to give the town an “old west feel” as one of the residents told us. I think all of the members of our pack can agree that living in Cooke City is definitely very different from anything we are used to and would take a big adjustment.

Here is a map of our day!

5/23/17 – 8:30 am

We were assigned to the main area of town where the park and many tourist shops are. On our way there, we noticed that there are a lot of real estate agencies lining the streets. The plethora of these agencies could say something about the socioeconomic status of the town. While many people we talked to were complaining about the lack of housing, these agencies sold high dollar homes, which indicates the lack of a middle class.

https://www.instagram.com/p/BUc4ldzjUT4/?taken-by=elk1luynp

Many of the buildings downtown were very close and clustered around each other because they can’t spread out due to the small amount of privately owned land. Also, many of the buildings were in an old west style, they had wooden siding and were adorned with elk antlers. The land if the middle of town was very flat, but looking outside of the town all you could see was the mountains and scenic landscape- the reason people come here.

 

We continued to walk through the shops, which were obviously geared toward tourists as many of them sold t-shirts and souvenirs. While walking we noticed many of the shops had “now hiring” signs posted on the doors. These public documents indicate that the town is in need of workers to support its tourist economy. We finally, made it to what was like a gigantic public document, the Welcome Center, where we talked with Rick Nelson who works for the Chamber of Commerce. In talking with him, we learned that the center is most tourist’s first stop as they enter the town to find out what they should do. He told us that the reason the town is called Jackson Hole is that it was named after a trapper, Danny Jackson. The Welcome Center was very informative and had a lot of public documents that showed us a lot about the history of the town and the wildlife. One interesting public document we saw at the Welcome Center was a sign above the toilet that indicated how to correctly use American bathrooms. This is just another example to show how much of an impact the tourism industry has on the town.

(Sign in the Welcome Center bathroom)

https://www.instagram.com/p/BUdhGO9jMxw/?taken-by=elk1luynp

Next, we went to the Snake River Angler where we talked to Jack and Alex about their experience living and working in the town and their opinions of tourists. They stated that, “Chinese people come because they love the American West.” After this statement, we began to notice that a lot of the tourist population was Asian. he said that the tourists are what keep this economy alive so they are thankful. Alex also said that a big problem is that most people make relatively decent wages, but are unable to afford housing. Because of this some people will squeeze like 12 people into a 2 bedroom house.

We ended our exploration at the front desk of the hotel and talked with Dan about some of the controversial issues in the area. He had just been to a wolf meeting the night before and was showing us on a map the areas where wolves are protected and cannot be hunted. He seemed to believe that wolves should be hunted everywhere because they can harm humans and cattle. Even though the wolf issue is controversial, he told us that the bears being taken off the endangered species list is an even more controversial issue. In asking about elk, he said that once a year they have season setting meetings to determine the population sizes they want to maintain and how many hunting licenses to sell. In talking about all of these regulations, one thing he said that really stood out to was was, “sometimes there is too much government.” This really hit home as we thought about what is really important the people or the place? After our talk with Dan, we headed back to the vans for our adventure to Jenny Lake!

Here is a map of our morning:

Overview

Our question, “what factors contribute to the aging elk population, despite their adequate reproduction?” came from our interest after researching elk and learning more than 50% of the elk population is over 9 years old, and the average elk only lives until about 15 or 16. We were interested then if the elk were reproducing. The unexpected answer we received is that they are reproducing adequately with most elk prepared to reproduce, birthing their offspring with a gestation of about 262 days. We then had to think of other reasons for the elk’s aging population if the cause was not because their inability to reproduce. Thus we came up with our question with the continuum being just one factor contributing to the aging population on one end, and many factors that contribute on the other end of the spectrum. So, is it  just the wolves doing most of the damage, or are the other factors significant enough to cause such an alarming shift in the average age of the elk?

The aging population is worrisome to biologists and park officials because as the elk age they can no longer be very productive or recover from population declines. Additionally, if the elk population declines, it will take food away from the predators who prey on the elk. Therefore, they will start hunting the other animals more heavily, thus affecting their population numbers. No single factor has been determined as to why the elk population is aging, so we will be considering multiple factors throughout our research in the park.

Many people like to blame the wolves for the aging elk population, however, they may not be the sole factor. One reason for the increasing average age could be the profit to be made for outfitters who facilitate elk hunts. On average, these trips can cost about $4,000, thus leading to more outfitters providing elk hunting outages. In addition to hunting, disease could be killing the young elk. Both Brucellosis and Chronic Wasting Disease have become prevalent in the elk population. Finally, bears could be a contributing factor to the aging elk population. Studies have shown that bears could be killing more elk than wolves, but that still does not explain why the population is aging. We are looking to find a connection between changes in the park’s ecosystem and the elk population to help explain why the population is aging and becoming less prevalent.

Get Involved!

If you would like to contribute to our aging elk conversation please feel free to comment on our blog or use the hashtag #WheresTheElk on Twitter or Instagram to share your input. We will be aggregating the information from the hashtag to share your input on the blog. Also, you can follow our research on Instagram @elk1luynp. Feel free to give us a follow and tag us in any interesting information you may find!

Learn More

Listed below you will find sources on the elk population if you are interested in learning more on your own!

“Why Are Yellowstone’s Elk Disappearing?”

http://discovermagazine.com/2014/may/16-elk-vanishing-act

“State Study Finds Yellowstone Elk Aging”

http://billingsgazette.com/sports/state-study-finds-yellowstone-elk-aging/article_7e68d8f4-5851-54d9-a6dd-ba055ed5841f.html

“Study: Wolves Not the Cause of Elk Population Decline in Wyoming”

http://www.outdoorlife.com/blogs/newshound/2013/06/study-wolves-not-cause-wyoming-elk-decline

“Mystery in Yellowstone”

https://www.smithsonianchannel.com/shows/mystery-in-yellowstone/0/3426461

“Aging Elk From Their Canine Teeth”

http://fwp.mt.gov/hunting/planahunt/huntingGuides/dea/agingElkBrochure.html