Elk are a familiar sight in much of Montana now, but that hasn't always been the case. By the early 1900s, unregulated hunting had led to massive declines in wildlife nationwide. But In Yellowstone, elk populations were exploding thanks to protections in place there. The solution to restoring elk outside the park seemed obvious. Less obvious was how to make it happen. This week on the Big Why, we trace the animals' bumpy path from the living laboratory called Yellowstone Park to Bitterroot Valley and beyond.
Austin Amestoy: Welcome to the Big Why, a series from Montana Public Radio where we find out what we can discover together. I’m your host, Austin Amestoy. This is a show about listener-powered reporting. We’ll answer your questions — large or small — about anything under the Big Sky. By Montanans for Montana, this is The Big Why.
Austin Amestoy: Producer Nick Mott: is here this time with a Big Why story of his own. Welcome, Nick.
Nick Mott: Always so fun to be here.
For so many of my favorite Big Why episodes, we get these questions that seem very small and niche, but turn out to be so fascinating.
Austin Amestoy: Totally. I remember stories about how the state line was drawn, about a Chinese restaurant in Butte, the state lullaby!
Nick Mott: I think our listener, Jayne Azzarello, agrees.
Jayne Azzarello: I love the show. I just love the show. It's always interesting.
Nick Mott: And Azzarello brought us one of these stories of her own. She lives just north of Darby, and a while back she stumbled upon this kinda mind-blowing fact: back in the days when the Bitterroot Valley was first settled, she heard there were hardly any elk in the area.
Jayne Azzarello: I just thought it was interesting and I thought other people might like to know, because it's such a big elk hunting spot down here.
Nick Mott: This little discovery led her to wonder: What’s the history of elk in the Bitterroot?
Austin Amestoy: I’ve definitely been driving through that area and seen big herds from the road. So what is the story of elk in the Bitterroot?
Nick Mott: Well, let’s start by going back in time. Salish people who lived for centuries in the Bitterroot did rely on elk, along with other animals like bison — but they often traveled long distances for their hunts. By the time white settlers got there …
Craig Jourdonnais: I know Lewis and Clark just about starved to death from the time they left the Bitterroot till they went over Lolo Pass and down into Idaho.
Nick Mott: That’s Craig Jourdonnais. He spent over three decades with Montana Fish, Wildlife, and Parks, and these days he’s a big game researcher at MPG Ranch towards the north end of the Bitterroot Valley.
Austin Amestoy: Huh, so there were so few elk and other animals Lewis and Clark almost couldn’t make it through?
Nick Mott: Yeah, though that journey doesn’t necessarily mean there weren’t any elk there. This is just a snapshot of time. Fires, droughts, even just seasonal movements shape elk presence in any given area. But, big picture …
Craig Jourdonnais: Elk were not really not near as abundant as they seem to be now in western, west of the Divide in Montana.
Austin Amestoy: Got it. So how do we go from relatively few elk to lots of them, right?
Nick Mott: Yeah, a whole lot. So to answer that, let’s focus on the early 1900s. And stick with me here Austin, because we’re moving out of the Bitterroot for a bit and over to Yellowstone National Park.
Alicia Murphy: There are so many stories in Yellowstone that have such outsized impacts on our world. And they're just kind of lost to time.
Nick Mott: That’s Alicia Murphy. She's a park historian at Yellowstone. When it comes to elk, there were two things going on at the same time at the turn of the 20th Century. Inside the park, the elk population was going through the roof. The Army was running the show. Hunting was illegal in the park and they were actively feeding the elk to boost the population.
Austin Amestoy: And this is probably the era where they’re killing off predators like wolves, too, right?
Nick Mott: Exactly, Austin. This was an era long before wildlife biology even existed. So the park’s predicament is too many elk for the landscape to support.
Alicia Murphy: So by the time we get to the 19-teens, the population estimate of elk in the park was in the 30-35,000 range, just in the Yellowstone herd.
Nick Mott: But outside the park, things were a lot different. In large part due to unregulated hunting in the 1800s, Bison, deer, elk and all kinds of other species had seen massive declines across the country, including in the Bitterroot Valley.
Austin Amestoy: Okay, so too many elk inside the park and too few outside Yellowstone. I think I see where you’re going here.
Nick Mott: Yup. This grand idea began to unfold. A new era of hunting regulation and wildlife restoration had begun. Maybe, wildlife managers thought, all these Yellowstone elk could provide for a much larger recovery. They could move elk from Yellowstone elsewhere to re-establish what had been lost. In Montana, Yellowstone, the state, and local rod and gun clubs all worked together.
People think of Yellowstone as a vacation destination, but it's also a living and breathing science experiment.Alicia Murpy
Alicia Murphy: The state of Montana actually came down and set up corrals just north of the park's entrance, just north of the park's boundary line.
Nick Mott: Then came the very first shipment of translocated Yellowstone elk. There are some discrepancies here — that inaugural shipment of elk might have gone to Fleecer Mountain near Butte in 1910. But what we do know is that …
Alicia Murphy: 1912 was the first year that we had, like, a really concerted effort to ship elk outside of Yellowstone.
Nick Mott: So as this effort got under way Austin, guess how much it would cost you if you wanted elk in your neck of the woods?
Austin Amestoy: Price per wild elk … $50?
Nick Mott: That would be a little low in today's money, but back then, elk went for 5 bucks a head. And that very first shipment in 1912 went to Hamilton. Members of the local Rod and Gun Club fundraised, and even copper king Marcus Daly pitched in $100 for a shipment.
Craig Jourdonnais: People hadn't done it, and so the agency itself was trying to figure out, okay, it's easy to say let's move elk from here to there, but how do you capture them? How do you load them up? How do you transport them?
Austin Amestoy: I can't even imagine how one would do this. Tell me about what went down.
Nick Mott: Forty-two elk went on the train in Gardiner. When the train chugged up to Hamilton, a massive crowd of locals waited anxiously to see this historic transplant. But when the doors opened, they got something they very much did not expect.
Austin Amestoy: Uh-oh. That doesn't sound good.
Nick Mott: Calves had been loaded up in the same crowded car as full-grown elk, and a number of those young animals were trampled to death. Lots of the ungulates were stressed, injured and exhausted when they arrived. Added to that, there was a big drop from the railcar to the ground, and the elk were too terrified to make the leap. Eventually, they were lassoed and yanked out of the car. Horrified onlookers described the elk as making sounds like wailing infants. One made a break for it and knocked over an old man down the road. Only 33 of those 42 elk made it.
Austin Amestoy: Oh my gosh, what a fracas!
Nick Mott: So yeah, mistakes were made. But wildlife managers learned, and two more shipments ended up going to the Bitterroot that year, in much more humane conditions. And the effort worked.
Craig Jourdonnais: There's no question in my mind that the elk, in fact the elk on the ranch I work on now, I'm sure are descendants from the ones that they brought in from Yellowstone.
Austin Amestoy: Wow, and did these shipments continue?
Nick Mott: They did. And not just to Montana. As many as 14,000 elk went from Yellowstone across the continent from 1912 to the 1960s. They were the seeds that blossomed into so many of the herds people all over the country treasure today.
Alicia Murphy: The list of Walla Walla, Washington, and Kansas and South Dakota – it's almost like any time I've talked to somebody about it, they've been like, 'oh, yeah, where I grew up, we had Yellowstone elk there.'
Craig Jourdonnais: It's a story that actually resulted in one of the world's greatest wildlife success stories ever told. I mean, it truly was a fantastic effort to bring these populations back.
It's a story that actually resulted in one of the world's greatest wildlife success stories ever told. I mean, it truly was a fantastic effort to bring these populations back.Craig Jourdonnais:
Nick Mott: These days, Montana’s elk numbers have come a long way from when the species was nearly extirpated in the early 1900s. More than 150,000 of the animals graze the state.
But this new era of recovery comes with drama of its own. In a lot of ways, the tensions over elk playing out today are echoes of the past: How many elk should there be, and where? So the elk story — both in Montana and in Yellowstone — is far from over.
Alicia Murphy: People think of Yellowstone as a vacation destination, but it's also a living and breathing science experiment as we continue this, you know, 150-plus years of trying to figure out how to best manage these places, and we’ve had a lot of successes and a lot of failures.
Austin Amestoy: Thanks so much, Nick.
Nick Mott: Of course, Austin! Great to be here.
Austin Amestoy: Now we want to know what makes you curious about Montana. Submit your questions below, or leave a message at 406-640-8933. Let's see what we can discover together! Find us wherever you listen to podcasts and help others find the show by sharing it and leaving a review.
-
If you’ve been to a taproom, you know that at most breweries across the state there’s a three pint limit and they stop serving at 8 p.m. One listener wants to know why. We've got answers. Pull up a stool, crack open a local brew and settle in for a taproom tale – or some barroom banter, depending on the time of day. -
When it comes to winter driving, everyone wants their route clear and dry, and they want it done quickly. Why don't the plows come sooner or more often? Why don't they drop more salt or deicer? Why not get more drivers on the road? Tag along as a Montana snowplow driver prepares for a big winter storm and find out more about the logistical, environmental and technical challenges that come with keeping the roads clear of snow. -
How do cabbage and spices become ingredients for community building? In Korea, the answer is kimjang, the fall tradition of making and sharing kimchi. This week on The Big Why, we visit a farm in the Bitterroot Valley where a group of Montanans came together to keep a food custom alive and find comfort and connection among the cabbage.
