Plan aims to expand elk habitat
Report released for public review of management, coordination targeting California’s 22 isolated herds
SACRAMENTO » As California’s elk herds rebound, the state has proposed a new management plan for the animals — creatures of great magnificence and caution that were once nearly pushed out of existence.
State officials say that the steadily increasing elk population — from 3,500 to 13,000 over four decades — demands a broader approach to expand, link and improve their scattered habitats so that they will continue to flourish.
Each of California’s 22 isolated herds, including some in Santa Clara and Alameda counties, are now monitored individually, using plans drafted in the 1980s.
The draft Statewide Elk Conservation and Management Plan, released for public review last week, seeks to coordinate these efforts — improving the elks’ genetic diversity and grazing lands, among other goals, with an eye toward boosting populations by at least another 10 percent.
“We had no comprehensive statewide plan for elk herds,” said
Joe Hobbs, a senior environmental scientist for the California Department of Fish and Wildlife. “This sets the foundation for future work and data collection.”
Some herds may need to be reduced to bring them in better balance with their ecosystems and prevent damage to ranch fencing, according to the plan.
Other herds may need to expand through the introduction of new elk that boost genetic diversity and resiliency.
And some herds could be better connected so that there’s easier transit and new access to untraveled landscapes.
Elk once roamed across much of California, from Mendocino County to the Tehachapi Mountains near Bakersfield, but extensive hunting and habitat loss throughout the 1800s nearly wiped out the species.
According to the new state report, however, California now has growing numbers of three species of elk: 5,700 Tule elk, 5,000 to 6,000 Roosevelt elk and about 1,500 Rocky Mountain elk.
They’re expanding into landscapes where they vanished more than a century ago, Hobbs said. Some are moving into the Sierra Nevada region of Sierra and Plumas counties. Others are moving down the coast, from Humboldt County to Mendocino County.
“There’s elk in Elk, California” — a tiny Mendocino County community located about 20 miles south of Fort Bragg — for the first time in recent history, Hobbs said.
The Bay Area’s Tule elk are all descended from 65 creatures from the Owens Valley that were released from 1978 to 1981 onto the 28,000-acre San Felipe Ranch, jointly owned by tech pioneers Bill Hewlett and David Packard, near Mount Hamilton in southern Santa Clara County.
“We moved animals not knowing if they would do well, or not do well. You never know,” said retired California Department of Fish and Wildlife warden Henry Coletto, who led the effort. “It is amazing to me that we have these populations. At one time, there were just a few left.”
Descendants of the animals have since dispersed from the release sites into portions of Santa Clara, Alameda, Merced, San Joaquin and Stanislaus counties, forming distinct populations.
In southern Santa Clara County, between Hellyer Park and Anderson Reservoir, a single herd of 30 elk has more than tripled in size during the past decade, said Craige Edgerton, recently retired executive director of the Silicon Valley Land Conservancy.
Now there are four herds in the Coyote Ridge area, including a “bachelor herd” of several bulls and a newly created herd, grazing just north of San Jose’s Metcalf Road, with one bull and 17 to 20 cows and calves, according to Edgerton and local naturalist Michael Hundt.
“They’ve gotten as close as 100 yards from Highway 101,” especially in winter, when they drop to the lower elevations, Edgerton said. In summer, they’re harder to see because they head up to the Mount Hamilton area on the back side of Henry Coe State Park.
A year ago, for the first time, Coletto spotted three elk at the 6,000-acre Cañada de los Osos Ecological Reserve, east of Gilroy.
Other animals from the Hewlett-Packard ranch have wandered north to Alameda and San Joaquin counties. About 100 elk have been sighted at San Antonio Reservoir, Apperson Ridge, Sunol and Connolly-Corral Hollow ranches.
“It appears to some of us that there is likely inbreeding happening, especially in San Antonio Valley near Mt. Hamilton,” said Bill Leikam of the Urban Wildlife Research Project, which seeks to open new territory for the herds by building a wildlife crossing at San Jose’s Metcalf Road overpass to expanding their range into the Santa Cruz Mountains. “Some of those elk have malformed antlers and several other indicators that inbreeding is taking place.”
Near San Luis Reservoir, several hundred animals hang around the dam. They are unable to safely cross four lanes of traffic at Highway 152, so their expansion is limited to the north and south.
Elk-human conflicts are increasing, as they knock down fences and compete with cattle for grass and water. At Point Reyes National Seashore, the U.S. Park Service has tried ineffective techniques such as contraception and hazing to keep the animals away from pastures.
The new state plan seeks to identify and map the areas of private property where there’s the greatest conflict, then issue more hunting permits.
There are other challenges: Recent research has shown that herds in once-depleted areas lost significant
amounts of genetic diversity when only a few individuals were introduced to a new area, or herds were not managed appropriately. This simulates a genetic bottleneck effect, making it difficult for populations to adapt to changing conditions.
“With so much of our state fragmented, with 40 million people, these populations are isolated,” Coletto said.
Improved herd management will improve diversity by bringing in animals from a variety of different herds around the state.
In 2014, wildlife workers from the state Department of Fish and Wildlife and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service captured 15 bulls, 16 cows and five calves in the
San Luis National Wildlife Refuge in Los Banos and trucked them to three areas: the San Antonio Valley Ecological Reserve in Santa Clara County north of Mount Hamilton, the Carrizo Plains Ecological Reserve in San Luis Obispo County and the Wind Wolves Preserve in Kern County.
The state also wants to improve the quality of elk habitats, better monitor elk for disease and offer workshops and new viewing opportunities for the public.
“Having a statewide plan gives us a bigger vision of the total populations,” Coletto said, “so we can better manage them.”