The Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation emphasized priorities for its mission but also elements important to outdoorsmen and women, and others in its latest round of comments directed at revised land management plans for the Malheur, Umatilla and Wallowa-Whitman National Forests.

The Blue Mountains, which stretch across those forests in Oregon and Washington, are home to an elk population that continues to decline with shrinking calf-to-cow ratios.

RMEF members and the organization supplied public comments for the forest plans dating back several years with a goal to help guide positive management actions and direction. Recent outreach did the same.

“Healthy, free-roaming elk herds contribute to and are intermingled with the social well-being, ecological integrity, cultural and economic goals of the forest. Elk and other big game serve ‘distinct roles and contributions’ to multiple user types on the forest (wildlife viewing, hunting, etc.) and the forest plan plays a significant role in supporting future big game populations,” wrote RMEF Director of Wildlife & Habitat Karie Decker. “RMEF recommends recognition of elk as an important species that provides economic and cultural value.”

Below are other points of emphasis made by RMEF:

  • encouragement of coordination with state wildlife agencies, including their goals for big game hunting
  • recognize the importance of big game connectivity, which is increasingly threatened by habitat loss, degradation and development
  • consider recent research on the benefits of actively managed landscapes, impacts of high use recreation, etc.
  • maintain and improve access to public lands with a priority on habitat connectivity, wildlife corridors and enhancing recreational opportunities
  • support a landscape-scale approach to increase the pace and scale of fuels reduction to reduce the risk of high intensity fires, thus maintaining and improving wildlife habitat
  • prioritize controlling and reducing invasive weeds
  • remove and/or modify more fencing annually
  • maintain and improve vegetation diversity via more active forest management treatments, with an emphasis on creating more early seral habitat
  • remove conifers that encroach into and degrade aspen stands, grasslands and meadows to improve big game winter range and habitat

Click here for information about the plan development.

RMEF is a member of the Blue Mountains Elk Initiative and, as such, has worked as a collaboration of organizations and individuals for the last 35 years to benefit elk and other wildlife in the Blue Mountains.

(Photo credit: Umatilla National Forest)