Cumberland Times-News

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January 21, 2012

Wapiti survey begins

Michael A. Sawyers Cumberland Times-News

What’s up with this elk stuff anyway?

I’m speaking, of course, about the news announced this past August that some folks are going to look around Garrett and Allegany counties to see if it would be feasible to reintroduce Rocky Mountain elk. Elk used to live here, you know. Maybe you don’t remember because it was a couple hundred or so years ago.

How else do you think we got a town name such as Elk Garden just across the river in what we like to refer to here at the Times-News as “nearby West Virginia.”

The good news is that Responsive Management is getting involved. That company is based in Harrisonburg, Va., and has built a solid reputation as a surveyor of the public when it comes to natural resources issues.

Paul Peditto, the director of the Maryland Wildlife & Heritage Service, calls Responsive Management the “best in the business.”

RM is near the completion of a couple West Virginia surveys, including one checking into the attitudes of hunters when it comes to chronic wasting disease in deer. I can’t wait to see those results.

But back to elk and back to Almost Maryland.

The players are the Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation (paying for the feasibility study), the Maryland Legislative Sportsmen’s Foundation (doing the legwork) and the Maryland Department of Natural Resources (providing wildlife expertise).

Mark Damian Duda, the executive director of Responsive Management, told us on Tuesday that the elk attitude survey will begin in February with results available in April.

“We will get complete responses from 800 Maryland residents,” Duda said. “It will take 10 to 12 minutes to complete the telephone survey.”

Duda said, too, that more residents of Garrett, Allegany and Washington counties will be called compared to any other one county in Maryland.

The calls are selected at random and will go to both landline and cell phones. The caller ID will read “Responsive Management.”

Duda said unanswered calls will be repeated to that number, up to five times, at different hours and days.

RM has been doing this kind of thing for 22 years now and, in fact, surveyed Marylanders a decade or so ago about their opinions concerning bear hunting.

“We have a great response rate,” Duda said. “Most people enjoy answering our questions.”

One question that will be asked: “Would you support or oppose the reintroduction of free-roaming elk into Western Maryland?”

That question would be followed by another: “Why?”

“People should know that the sponsors of the feasibility study are serious about determining the attitudes of residents about a possible elk reintroduction before making a decision,” Duda said.

We already know what the elected Garrett County commissioners think. They oppose a reintroduction.

There is a huntable population of elk in northern Pennsylvania. The Pennsylvania Game Commission reports that since 2001 there have been 99 elk struck and killed by automobiles. During that same time period, eight elk stepped in front of railroad trains twice; the first time and the last time.

Pa.’s elk population currently numbers about 700 animals descended from those restocked from Yellowstone Park.

During the 2011 Keystone State elk hunt, 50-plus animals were killed.

 Contact Outdoor Editor Mike Sawyers at msawyers@times-news.com or 301-784-2523.

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