DOE opposes elk hunts on Hanford Reach

RICHLAND – A proposal to include public or tribal hunting in a plan for managing elk at the Hanford Reach National Monument may be shelved after the U.S. Department of Energy said it would be inconsistent with the site’s overall management plan.

The Energy Department issued its position late last week in a written public comment to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. That agency manages Hanford Reach, a free-flowing stretch of the Columbia River bordering the Hanford Nuclear Reservation. The reach and the nuclear site are owned by the Energy Department.

Wildlife managers estimate the reach’s elk population at close to 800 animals – hundreds more than some scientists believe the area can support. Area farmers complain that the elk are damaging their crops. The state has paid more than $500,000 for crop damages by the herd since 2000.

In November, the Fish and Wildlife Service released for public comment three alternatives for managing the elk. The agency’s preferred alternative called for controlled public hunting, a trap and relocation program and, if necessary, a government cull, in which wildlife officers would reduce the size of the herd.

Mike Ritter, Fish and Wildlife’s deputy project leader for the Hanford Reach, said the agency received about 60 comments on the plan, which were fairly evenly divided on the hunting issue.

The comment with the most weight didn’t arrive until late last week. The Fish and Wildlife proposal was reviewed by the Energy Department before it was released to the public, Ritter said, but what the Energy Department says goes.

“They are the landowner. We just manage it under permit,” he said. “They have the final say.”

Ritter said representatives of the two federal agencies and state wildlife officials will soon meet to discuss other ideas for elk control.

Former President Clinton created the Hanford Reach National Monument by proclamation five years ago. The monument, an odd, almost horseshoe-shape property surrounding the Hanford Nuclear Reservation, stretches along a stretch of the river known for salmon runs, bird habitat and rare plant life.

The site includes land, known as the Arid Lands Ecology Reserve, that is considered one of the few large blocks of shrub-steppe habitat remaining in the Northwest. The reserve used to be part of the nuclear reservation and has been closed to the public since Hanford was created in the 1940s.

If the proposed management plan had been approved, about 42,000 acres of the 77,000-acre ALE would have been opened for special-permit public hunts. The plan called for the herd to be reduced by about 350 animals.

The plan did not mention hunting by American Indians, but federal managers were negotiating with area tribes separately.

Ritter said the Energy Department comment likely would block ceremonial hunting by tribal members.

E. Arlen Washines, Yakama Nation wildlife manager, said he was disappointed the tribes were not included in the proposed plan. Tribal members have respected the Energy Department’s closure of the area to create the Hanford nuclear reservation, he said, but the tribe maintains it can hunt on the land.

“The treaty didn’t give us the right, that was a God-given right,” he said. “When they established the Hanford reservation, the Yakama tribe was never consulted. We respected that decision to close it, but we didn’t agree to give up our right to use that area.”