{"id":182138,"date":"2025-09-26T03:17:09","date_gmt":"2025-09-26T03:17:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/182138\/"},"modified":"2025-09-26T03:17:09","modified_gmt":"2025-09-26T03:17:09","slug":"judas-elk-to-help-target-jackson-hole-suburban-elk-easing-pressure-on-yellowstone-migrants-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/182138\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018Judas elk\u2019 to help target Jackson Hole \u2018suburban elk,\u2019 easing pressure on Yellowstone migrants"},"content":{"rendered":"

by\u00a0Mike Koshmrl<\/a>, WyoFile<\/a><\/p>\n

In the coming months, thousands of elk will migrate onto the National Elk Refuge, just outside the town of Jackson, where the Jackson Elk Herd winters.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Historically, they\u2019ve traveled long distances from summer range in places like southern Yellowstone National Park, but so-called \u201csuburban elk\u201d that stick nearer to Jackson to\u00a0feed off hayfields and in residential subdivisions are increasing<\/a>. It\u2019s a headache for ranchers and wildlife managers that also reduces hunting opportunities and threatens the herd\u2019s natural biodiversity. To best conserve long-range migration, wildlife managers would ideally concentrate hunting pressure on the refuge on the \u201csuburban elk\u201d \u2014 a task that has been nearly impossible until now.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen they\u2019re on the refuge and there\u2019s thousands of elk milling around, you can\u2019t tell just by looking at them whether they migrated eight kilometers or 80 kilometers,\u201d said Gavin Cotterill, a quantitative disease ecologist with the U.S. Geological Survey.\u00a0<\/p>\n

New research Cotterill headed changes the equation.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cBased on this work,\u201d he said, \u201cwe can predict where conflict-prone suburban elk [that get into livestock feed] are going to be.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Cotterill\u2019s study,\u00a0\u201cElk personality and anthropogenic food subsidy: Managing conflict and migration loss,\u201d<\/a>\u00a0assists wildlife managers with tools to decipher which of the 10,000 elk in the herd are migrating from where. Specifically, the research could help concentrate hunting pressure on the lowland elk that summer on ranchland and amid the trophy homes of\u00a0the wealthiest Americans<\/a>\u00a0once they reach the National Elk Refuge. Doing so could help efforts to preserve\u00a0struggling migratory elk<\/a>\u00a0that now take the brunt of the gunfire.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"\"\/Migrating animals in the Jackson Elk Herd travel an average one-way distance of 39 miles, with journeys topping out at 168 miles. The routes are delineated in this map from the U.S. Geological Survey\u2019s Ungulate Migrations of the Western United States, Volume 1. (USGS)<\/p>\n

How does it work? With location data from 101 GPS-collared female elk, Cotterill used modeling to discover that the conflict-prone elk that generally live south of Grand Teton National Park were four times more likely to use the southernmost feeding areas on the refuge nearer to the town of Jackson.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThe single strongest predictor of which feeding area they\u2019re going to use was whether they ate livestock feed in suburban areas,\u201d Cotterill said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

That\u2019s a finding the Wyoming Game and Fish Department has a keen interest in, and it has potential to help reverse an undesirable trend that\u2019s long been afoot in the Jackson Elk Herd. Historically, virtually all animals that winter on the National Elk Refuge were considered \u201clong-distance migrants\u201d that spent summer in places like Yellowstone National Park, the Teton Wilderness, the Gros Ventre drainage and northern Grand Teton National Park. By 2012, however, the\u00a0proportion was less than 60%<\/a>\u00a0\u2014 and the suburban elk are potentially still in the process of taking over.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe may actually be seeing a slight increase in those short-distance migrants,\u201d Game and Fish Disease Biologist Ben Wise said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"\"\/Thousands of elk hoofprints dot a snowy slope in November 2022 at the National Elk Refuge, where part of the 10,000-strong Jackson Elk Herd has made its annual migration. (Angus M. Thuermer, Jr.\/WyoFile)<\/p>\n

The growing imbalance, he said, is related to big differences in reproductive success and calf survival. Lowland elk that live in housing subdivisions and on ranches are adding 40 or 50 calves to their ranks for every 100 cows, but the calf ratio is only about 20 per 100 for migrating elk.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Wise, who\u2019s a co-author of the study, explained that come fall of 2026, the bolder elk that dwell in the refuge\u2019s southernmost feeding areas will have more of a target on their back. And it\u2019ll be because of their own kind. He\u2019s using the term \u201cJudas elk\u201d to describe GPS-collared animals that will assist Game and Fish in pointing hunters toward the problematic suburban elk. The tracked animals, in essence, will be attracting a source of danger \u2014 human hunters \u2014 to their herdmates.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s something that\u2019s really kind of novel for this area,\u201d Wise said. \u201cWe have so many different elk coming from so many different summer ranges into this winter range [on the refuge]. And we\u2019re definitely trying to manage for certain segments and bolster those populations where we can, while still getting harvest on the segments that we don\u2019t have a lot of access to anywhere else.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Easing hunting pressure on the long-distance migratory elk has historically proven a great challenge because the herds cut through other\u00a0late-season hunt areas, like Grand Teton National Park<\/a>. Then they\u2019re the first to arrive at the federal wildlife refuge, where\u00a0hunters are waiting for them<\/a>.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

Jackson Hole\u2019s pesky suburban elk, meanwhile, spend most of the fall in a much trickier landscape where they\u2019re hard to hunt. Then they\u2019re typically the last cohort to show up on the refuge.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"\"\/A herd of at least several hundred elk on the National Elk Refuge bid farewell to the last shed hunters departing the adjacent Bridger-Teton National Forest on May 1, 2024. (Mike Koshmrl\/WyoFile)<\/p>\n

The \u201cJudas elk\u201d will help wildlife managers point hunters toward the so-called suburban elk when they do arrive.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen they cross the line, how do we get hunters to go out there?\u201d Wise said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The elk will be tracked this winter as part of a broader effort to equip 150 members of the Jackson Elk Herd with GPS collars. They\u2019ll be programmed to transmit \u201cfinite, fine-scale information\u201d about their location several times a day from November through early January, Wise said.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

In wildlife management, the concept of a \u201cJudas\u201d animal \u2014 a nod to the Christian Bible\u2019s apostle who betrayed Jesus\u2014 is well established. \u201cJudas wolves\u201d were used during the mid-1990s to capture packmates of Canadian wolves\u00a0reintroduced into the Northern Rockies<\/a>, and \u201cJudas lake trout\u201d have also been used to map out the nonnative species\u2019 spawning beds in Yellowstone Lake with the intent of\u00a0choking out the next generation before it begins<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Using \u201cJudas elk\u201d to help hunters go after Jackson Hole\u2019s conflict-prone suburban elk comes after years of effort to rebalance the herd by conserving the long-distance migrants.<\/p>\n

\u201cElk are pretty, pretty savvy to anything that we\u2019ve done,\u201d Wise said. \u201cHow do we outsmart this herd of elk for more than just one year?\u201d<\/p>\n

Cotterill\u2019s study also reflected on the complex task of conserving the Jackson Elk Herd\u2019s migrations. Movement corridors in Jackson Hole cut through protected landscapes like the Bridger-Teton National Forest and are \u201cpretty well preserved\u201d as open spaces, he said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat we\u2019re saying is that might not be enough,\u201d Cotterill said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Adaptable species like elk readily capitalize on human-related food sources, like hay meant for cattle. They also take \u201canthropogenic refuge\u201d from predation, and have less risk of being eaten by grizzly bears or wolves in the suburbs than they do in wilder places.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s working against long-distance migration,\u201d Cotterill said, \u201cin the favor of these short-distance migrants.\u201d<\/p>\n

Cotterill\u2019s study was supported by the USGS\u2019 Ecosystems Mission Area. It\u2019s a division of the federal agency that the Trump administration\u00a0is seeking to almost completely eliminate<\/a>.<\/p>\n

This article was originally published by\u00a0WyoFile<\/a>\u00a0and is republished here with permission.\u00a0WyoFile<\/a>\u00a0is an independent nonprofit news organization focused on Wyoming people, places and policy.<\/p>\n

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