It’s humans vs wildlife in booming American West

By Laura Zuckerman

SALMON, Idaho (Reuters) – Mary Smith used to consider it
charming when she saw the occasional mule deer traipsing
through this small Idaho town. That was before herds of the
long-eared animals native to this remote mountain region began
camping out in her yard, eating everything in sight.

“They practically ring the doorbell,” Smith said of the
bucks, does and fawns that have laid waste to thousands of
dollars of landscaping.

Smith’s experience is mirrored in Idaho, Montana and
Wyoming where land that once served as wildlife habitat is
being converted into housing and commercial developments.

The phenomenon is nothing new in urban and suburban
America, where high-rises, strip malls and subdivisions long
ago sprawled across acreage that used to support wildlife. But
in the wide-open spaces of the Northern Rockies, where the deer
and the antelope still play, rising conflicts between residents
and wildlife are causing fresh consternation.

The leap in human-wildlife encounters coincides with
soaring housing starts as increasingly affluent newcomers
settle the interior West. Incursions into the communities along
the region’s scenic river and mountain valleys are pronounced
in the winter, when stressed big-game herds leave the high
country’s deep snows and subzero temperatures to find greener
pastures.

From resort communities in central Idaho and southwest
Wyoming to Montana’s capital city, officials are cracking down
on four-legged marauders.

In Salmon, Idaho, residents have greeted the mayor’s
contention that deer herds are breaking a city law that bans
animals from running at large with a mix of praise and guffaws.
But the mayor is deadly serious: He wants the Idaho Department
of Fish and Game to detain the deer that he says are running
amok, even if it means shooting the most egregious offenders.

The proposal has divided the city, with many residents
objecting to the prospect of officials being deployed to
protect landscaping.

In the exclusive ski community of Ketchum, state game
wardens are evicting an elk herd that has made a golf course
its winter residence. Former owners of the golf course fed the
elk for two decades but new owners plan to develop the area.

Attempts to wean the elk from the site sent the animals
careening through neighborhoods in search of tasty treats,
resulting in hundreds of thousands of dollars in landscaping
and property damage.

WESTERN CULTURE CLASH

Pharmacist Monte Straley, for one, is disturbed by the
deportation plan. The Ketchum resident points to the clash in
cultures between native Westerners who have made their peace
with wild animals and Information Age settlers who enjoy such
encounters only from a distance. “They come out West to enjoy
the lifestyle, then complain when it inconveniences them, like
the elk eating their landscaping,” he said.

Game wardens in Helena, Montana, shot a record number of
deer in city limits in 2005 after the animals threatened
residents, cornering a paperboy and charging pedestrians.
Officials instituted the sharp-shooting policy on aggressive
deer last year for the first time in the city’s history,
arguing the animals were endangering the public.

“It’s a safety issue,” said Helena City Manager Tim Burton.
“We’ve had animals jumping off parking structures, animals
crashing through plate-glass windows, animals goring pets to
death.”

Last month, Helena officials outlawed the intentional
feeding of deer, with the maximum penalty $500 and six months
in jail.

Wildlife managers say they are hard-pressed to keep pace
with the land-use and social changes rippling through the
Rockies. While experts are required to submit analyses of the
impact sprawl will have on wildlife, developers in the majority
of cases are under no obligation to adjust plans to accommodate
animals.

Game wardens in Idaho, Montana and Wyoming say that they
have become victims of their own success in repopulating game
herds hunted to near extinction during the settlement boom in
the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

Population gains and cultural transitions in some segments
of the West have underscored what Mike Korn, Helena area
coordinator for the Montana Department of Fish, Wildlife and
Parks, calls the “Bambification of wildlife” after Disney’s
winsome deer.

“On one hand, they are embraced as wild symbols and on the
other hand they’re looked at as large domestic pets,” he said.

Game managers have long frowned on the feeding of wild
animals, a practice they say makes them dependent on artificial
sources of sustenance and breeds disease. A ban already is in
place in Montana. In Wyoming, lawmakers will vote in the
upcoming session on legislation that outlaws the feeding of
big-game and trophy animals, a measure adopted two years ago in
Teton County, which contains the tourist town of Jackson.

Left to their own devices, “some people will love wildlife
to death,” said Jim Lukens, regional supervisor with Idaho Fish
and Game.