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“It is a working military base … We’ve had an aggressive strategy in mind for years, but it will depend on base relations.”

But Mr. Lewandoski fears hunting won’t do enough to put a stop to the exponentially expanding herd. Firstly, for any cull to be successful, it must target the cows as well as the bulls. And — he swears this is true — he’s only ever seen bulls on his property.

Mr. Lewandoski is reasonably sure the elk are smart enough to keep the females safely ensconced on the base.

This presents a second problem: when the young males grow antlers, they need to rub their heads against something, much like an irritated teething baby needs to rub its gums.

“In the wild, in the mountains, they have trees. Well we don’t have trees here, so they will rub them on our fence posts until they break them right off.”

In the summer, fence repairs are near daily occurrences. The elk, he said, sneak into his farm at night and chomp on his crops. They’re gone by morning, leaving depleted crops and withered fence posts.

Mr. MacDonnell expressed some skepticism about the intelligence of elk.

“The simplest explanation from our perspective is that every animal will flee when there’s hunting going on. Their objective is to get to an area where they’re not going to be stressed,” he said. “They will migrate to quieter areas, and it turns out that on the east side of the base, there’s a national wildlife area.

“It’s not like they can read the [no hunting] signs.”

Still, both Mr. Lewandoski and Mr. Olson insist the government is going to need to take a heavier hand in the matter.

“They are giving out tags and doing a little hunting inside the base, but it’s not coming close to the numbers we need to kill in order to keep the herd where it is — and we need to decrease it by at last three-quarters of what it is now,” Mr. Lewandoski said.

National Post

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