Wildlife Resources: The Elk of Jackson Hole, Wyoming

The Jackson Hole, Wyoming, elk herd lacks an effective “commons institution” for its management. Conflict over management is particularly intense for the segment of the herd that winters in the National Elk Refuge. The fundamental problem is that too many elk are concentrated in too small an area on the refuge in winter, leading to a high incidence of the disease brucellosis, vulnerability to tuberculosis, degradation of plant communities, loss of biodiversity, and high supplemental feeding costs. These substantive problems are accompanied by process or procedural problems: a large number of organizational participants, who have identified various problems in the situation, have been unable to resolve their differences. The decision process has been characterized by lawsuits, rigidification of opposing positions through the NEPA process, unclear goals, competing problem definitions, ineffective organizational mechanisms for addressing problems (including lack of public participation), and weak leadership. This situation can be attributed to institutional factors (such as the struggle for control and states’ rights), contextual factors (such as changes in the uses and values of the elk refuge and the role of the public in resource management), and leadership factors (such as the centralization, professionalization, and bureaucratization of management agencies). Three measures could help in clarifying and achieving common interests in the elk case First, community-based participatory groups could build trust, skill, and civic knowledge. Second, government could establish a better decision process and leadership. Finally, a new goal of “restoring wild patterns” could alleviate many of the substantive problems of the current feed-ground concentrations of elk. Wildlife is a common property resource in the United States and throughout the world, yet special interests typically make claims on its uses. The worldfamous elk (Cervus elaphus) herd of Jackson Hole, Wyoming, is no exception. Like all natural resource management, managing elk can be reduced to questions of “How will they be used?” and “Who gets to decide?” Continuing conflict stems from these two issues. Government agencies that dominate the decision-making process seem to employ a “primitive power balancing” strategy in dealings with one another (see Brunner 1994), and while this dynamic plays itself out, elk management is negotiated through technical and legal language about the elk-feeding program, disease prevention, hunting issues, and states’ rights vs. federalism. The few officials and citizens who want to break this cycle find it difficult to change the politics. The absence of an effective “commons institution” to address wildlife management is evident in this case as in many others (Burger et al. 2000; Ostrom 2000). The Jackson Hole herd of 16,000 migratory elk ranges over millions of acres in northwestern Wyoming annually. Between 8,000 and 10,000 animals typically winter on the 25,000-acre National Elk Refuge, although officials’ goal for some decades has been 7,500. Elk have traditionally been fed hay and cattle pellets in winter, and parts of the refuge are irrigated for hay production to support the artificially high herd size. Most of the remaining elk winter on feed grounds managed by the Wyoming Game and Fish Department and located on nearby national forest lands. Conflict over management is most intense about the National Elk Refuge herd segment. Basically, too many elk are concentrated 1 Originally published in Joanna Burger, Elinor Ostrom, Richard B. Norgaard, David Policansky, and Bernard D. Goldstein, eds., The commons revisited: an American perspective (Island Press 2000). Reprinted with permission of the editors and the publisher. Like all natural resource management, managing elk can be reduced to questions of “How will they be used?” and “Who gets to decide?” Continuing conflict stems from these two issues.