A little info.
The article mentioned by the early 1900's there were a guesstimated 500-1000 elk left in the state. That number has been used for 40 years, who knows how accurate it is.
By 1960 there were 50,000 elk in the state.
By 1980 there were 120,000 elk in the state.
By 1986 there were 165,000 elk in the state. AT that point, according to press releases the CPW determined that was the max carrying capacity in the state for elk. But the elk herd kept growing, and so did the stated "carrying capacity" for elk in Colorado (funny how that works.....)
By the late 90's the estimate was 300,000 elk and the CPW was desperately trying to reduce what was/is a gross over-population of elk.
First, there is almost two generations of elk hunters out there who have never known anything BUT an overpopulation of elk in Colorado. They think that the current 275,000 elk is normal. It s not normal, and is probably still an overpopulation. The article subtly suggests that hunting --and the hunting economy--is driving management of popular big game species. It is indeed. It has for the past 50 years.
And the suggestion is that quite possibly the CPW is attempting to sustain the unsustainable. That might be true. It might not be true.
But I have never got a straight answer when I ask "How did the elk population carrying capacity go from 165,000 in 1986 to 275,00 currently? Now, "carrying capacity" can be a rather nebulous number. No government agency has the resources to count every blade of grass, or every leader on every browse plant, or every forb, in the state. But going from 165,00 to 275,000 carrying capacity is quite a leap.
