Pets/Animals

By Todd Hartman, Rocky Mountain News
ROCKY MOUNTAIN NATIONAL PARK, Colo. (AP) ― Park Service veterinarian Margaret Wild took aim with a sleek, green metallic rifle, darting her target elk in the hip with a knockout drug that had the creature on the ground in just a couple minutes.

A five-member team surrounded the animal, working quickly in the snow and fast-dropping temperatures. They blindfolded the cow to help calm her, drew blood, checked for pregnancy, snatched a piece of rectal tissue, collected saliva, injected a birth control drug and attached a radio collar to track the animal.

Finally, a shot of drugs to reverse the anesthetic.

The 15-year-old creature, groggy, lifted her head, slowly climbed to her feet, stumbled a bit, then, regaining her senses, trotted off to join her herd waiting 100 yards west in the park's Beaver Meadows.

"Atta girl!" one of the researchers whispered.

So begins a major research project, where, for the first time, wildlife veterinarians will test the effectiveness of a fertility control agent as well as the accuracy of a new live-animal test for chronic wasting disease in elk -- a study watched by wildlife biologists around the country.

In all, researchers will target 120 Rocky Mountain National Park elk. The cooperative creature hit Friday was No. 83. Researchers just began the job this month.

Early indications are that both the birth control drug, called GonaCon, and the live CWD test work. But the testing so far has come on captive animals. Researchers won't be satisfied until they see if the agents work in the wild.

Rocky Mountain National Park, as it turned out, proved to be an ideal testing ground.

That's because, parallel to this research, park managers are embarking on a program to reduce its elk population.

An inflated elk herd in recent years -- exacerbated by no hunting allowed inside the national park and a lack of predators -- has damaged the park's ecology.

The elk are over-consuming aspen and willow needed to support healthy stream systems and beaver habitat.

The park's plan to trim the herd calls for sharpshooters, under Park Service supervision, to cull as many as 200 elk per year for up to 20 years to bring the elk herd under control.

Because the 120 elk in the birth control and CWD study will eventually be killed, the research fits into the park's broader plan to cut elk numbers.

"It's given us an opportunity," said Wild. "Part of the beauty of this project is we're learning a lot of different things from the same group of animals."

Any elk in the research study that test positive for CWD, a fatal disease, will be euthanized shortly after the test results come back.

Remaining elk will be taken at a rate of 40 per year for three years.

That's so researchers can examine them to make sure the fertility control drug isn't having unintended effects on the elk's health.

Sixty of the 120 elk are given the drug, while 60 will act as a control group.

Despite the research, there are no near-term plans to use the birth control drug as a method to keep elk numbers low in the park.

Researchers admit its costly and impractical to use on a large scale.

As for the CWD test, researchers hope it gives officials a better sense of the disease's prevalence inside the park.

There's also hope that using a live test could make it easier to target infected elk, remove them and reduce the spread of the disease.

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