Elk project aims to save animals from starvation

The elk so shy and wild most of the year headed for the food as soon as the truck was 100 yards away. Some of the elk looked thin with hair missing in patches on their flanks.

“We came down this morning and saw them eating hay out of the back of the truck,” said Brian Calkins, the state Department of Fish and Wildlife’s wildlife area manager. “They’re hungry.”

One of the coldest, snowiest winters in years coupled with an overpopulation of elk on Mount St. Helens has sparked winter elk feeding on the mudflow for the second year in a row. Fish and Wildlife is feeding hay to about 400 elk a day there…

…”We believe wildlife should take care of themselves, but we’ve been supplementing food as volunteers,” Mark Smith said. “There have been changes up here and loss of elk habitat from forest regrowth, and the river comes up and washes away huge amounts of winter habitat.”

The winter feeding program which cost Fish and Wildlife about $63,000 last year is a stop-gap measure to keep stressed elk from starving to death, Calkins said.

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