Wow! Dropping from 2,860 down to 148 is nearly a twenty-fold decrease in elk tags for the valley north of Gardiner, Mt. Can it really be true that wolves are to blame for all this?

It would be interesting to gather opinions from other conservation experts in the Gardiner area to get their take on if any other mitigating factors besides wolves affected the decision to drop the amount of elk tags allotted.

Meanwhile today’s Statesman features an article (on page A-10) about an overabundance of elk in the Rocky Mountain National park, which has become so problematic that they intend to send sharpshooters to cull the herd by 200 per year for several years, beginning in 2009.