Crossways With Elk

Innovative study hopes to help mating elk safely cross the highway CROSSWAYS WITH ELK

JEFFREY GAGNON SITS in the predawn chill at the base of the Mogollon Rim in a cramped travel trailer and watches as the elk on the closed-circuit camera balances hunger against caution. The elk examines the opening of the netted trap that surrounds the alluring pile of delicious alfalfa. Not right. Not right at all. Odd. Very odd. A little scary. But the alfalfa smells nice. So nice. Very nice. She pokes her head into the opening and peers about inside, trying to place this strange structure into the most vital of categories: Threat, or no threat. But ahhh, the smell of the alfalfa. Gotta get it. Gotta go. The elk moves partway into the enclosure, tensed and wary. Nothing. Just the intoxicating aroma of the hay. Life is sweet. So she ventures in past the opening and lowers her head, seduced and heedless. >>

COLLAR OF THE WILD Arizona Game and Fish

Department biologists trap a young elk along State Route 260 near Payson in an effort to study the animal's migration patterns. PETER ALESHIRE That's when Gagnon, an Arizona Game and Fish Department wild-life biologist about to traumatize her for her own good, hits the switch and drops the net across the opening. Got another one. No rush. Now he puts in a call to Norris Dodd, the project biologist who is managing one of the most ambitious attempts ever undertaken to study the behavior of wild elk along highways. In the morning, they'll creep up on the enclosure, loop ropesaround the feet of the trapped elk, pull her to the ground and clamp on a satellite tracking collar so they can follow every move she makes for the next two years.

Gagnon and Dodd have been trapping, collaring, releasing and tracking elk living along State Route 260 near Payson for nearly five years. This year, they're expanding the project to radio-collar elk living along Interstate 17 near Flagstaff, in hopes of preventing hundreds of collisions with elk and deer that injure and kill drivers almost every year.

Historically, a vehicle hits an elk about once a week along the stretch of State 260 that they are currently studying. The area supports both a year-round elk population and elk that move down off the Mogollon Rim as winter sets in. Statewide, cars hit elk or deer more than 1,000 times a year in Arizona. In 2003, five drivers or their passengers died as a result of colliding with wildlife among the more than 1,000 animals, about half of them deer and elk.

So the Arizona Game and Fish Department teamed up with the Arizona Department of Transportation (ADOT) to redesign highways in elk country and save lives-human and elk alike. As part of the widening of 260 between Payson and the Rim, biologists and engineers designed wildlife-friendly underpasses along a 17-mile stretch, then added fencing to funnel elk, deer, bears, mountain lions and other wildlife toward the crossings. Next, the biologists collared more than a hundred elk to see how they responded to the redesigned highways.

Have YOU HERD? Because elk prefer habitats of semiopen forests and protected grassy clearings, this lush mountain meadow in the Apache-Sitgreaves National Forests makes for an ideal family reunion. TOM BEAN(below) is a Game and Fish research tactic that has effectively reduced elk-car highway collisions, sparing both wild and human life. PETER ALESHIRE

NET GAIN What looks like man's inhumanity to nature

The result: An 83 percent drop in collisions along mostly fenced and bridged stretches.

The project also yielded an unprecedented windfall of data about elk behavior, since biologists have 30 to 40 elk at a time fitted with collars that record the elks' position every two hours or so by satellite. The GPS collars drop off after two years and emit a homing signal, so biologists can hike through the woods, collect a collar and download its record of an elk's movements.

The study has confirmed what the remarkable comeback of elk across the nation has suggested-one of the largest deer species in the Americas is tough, adaptable and semiobsessive in its mating habits. Consider the statistics. By 1900, native Merriam elk had vanished, and by 1922 only 90,000 elk remained in theU.S.-nearly half of them in Yellowstone National Park. Today, Arizona harbors perhaps 35,000 elk, most descended from 83 animals released near Chevelon Creek atop the Mogollon Rim in 1913.

Only three things deeply concern elk, say biologists: mating, eating and not getting eaten. Once, we'd probably have added wolves to the predator list, but hunters wiped out Arizona's wolves, so elk need worry only about stray mountain lions or calf-hungry black bears. Elk spend most of their lives segregated by sex. Females and the young wander about looking for tasty meadows, since they eat all sorts of things but get the most energy per bite from meadow grass-unless they happen upon a tempting pile of alfalfa. They also overheat easily, so elk bed down in the shade all day and venture out mostly at night. This is when they cross highways, usually making their meadow rounds.

The bulls spend most of the year alone in inaccessible canyons. But during the summer and fall, they emerge from their seclusion to round up a harem of females, which they defend obsessively from other bulls. Younger bulls hang out on the edges of harems, seeking love on the run during the rut. The bulls roar their prerogatives, filling the forest with a strange cry that seems more sea serpent than deer. They settle most disputes with a ritualized brandishing of antlers, but it sometimes comes to blows and broken necks. Males can lose 40 percent of their body weight during the rut, since they barely have time to chew, much less sleep.

The highway study has illuminated how the distribution of meadows influences elk movements, since most crossings take place near meadows. A small percentage of elk cross repeatedly-and they're the ones most likely to end up getting smacked by a vehicle. Although most elk won't go out of their way to use an undercrossing, once funneled by fencSeeing, they cross readily especially the yearround elk that get used to the covered crossing. Even so, they prefer underpasses with an open design lacking high concrete walls, presumably because the dark ledges at the top of the walls look like great places for notoriously sneaky mountain lions to lie in wait.

The fencing and underpasses have already dramatically reduced elk-car collisions in certain stretches. Now, ADOT is experimenting with electronic wildlife crossings in sections that lack underpasses. Fences will funnel the animals to crossings where military-grade motion sensors detect their approach and trigger flashing warning lights on the highway. Gagnon and Dodd hope that the overall study will provide key information on elk movements and highway design that can be applied nationwide as well as in the Flagstaff area. But first, they have to collar the alfalfa addict out in the meadow.

They approach the trap carefully, not wanting to spook the already exasperated elk. Advancing from behind a screen of trees with ropes in hand, they move quickly to the enclosure. The elk snorts and rolls her eyes. Gagnon slips up behind, slides a rope under the bottom rail of the enclosure and catches one rear leg. Dodd then moves to loop a rope around a front hoof so they can pull the elk's legs out from under her. Then in the most dangerous moment of the operation, they open the door and Gagnon jumps in on top of the prone elk and slips a hood Over its head. Now blind and confined, the elk immediately calms down.

Working with practiced haste, Gagnon and Dodd bolt on the radio collar, attach an ear tag and get out again before the elk becomes stressed or overheated.

Finally, they open the trap's door and jump back. The elk hesitates a moment, then bolts out of the opening, across the meadow and into the shelter of the trees. She runs until she feels safe-not understanding that Gagnon will know every move she makes for the next two years.

A rough night. But, hey. All's well that ends well. Besides, the alfalfa was wonderful.

And now the scent of elk love is in the air.

Harems await beyond the underpass.

Life is good.

Peter Aleshire believes the Arizona Game and Fish Department's elk study is one of the most innovative wildlife conservation programs in the nation.