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Where Elk Roam is the first book published for a general audience about the elk of Jackson Hole, Wyoming, since Olaus Murie’s Elk of North America 60 years ago. This first-person account mixes personal stories and field experiences of the National Elk Refuge biologist with the details of this iconic elk herd’s ecology, and the role that socio-economics plays in its management and conservation. The narrative centers on the winter feeding program, designed to sustain more elk than the winter range can support, and the consequences to habitat, biodiversity, and the health of the elk from crowding thousands of animals on feedlines each winter.
The author worked for 22 years (1982-2004) at the National Elk Refuge, coordinating winter feeding of 8,000 elk and tracking their births, deaths, and annual migrations throughout the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem. The book brings to life the joys and rewards of working with elk and other magnificent species—including bears, mountain lions, and wolves—and it entertains and educates while also moving readers toward active participation in conservation.
What others are saying about Where Elk Roam:
"Bruce Smith, who spent 22 years as the US Fish and Wildlife Service’s biologist at the National Elk Refuge, tells its story with the bark off. His job required consummate skills as a biologist, scientist, social scientist, synthesizer, and politician. Now in retirement he tells it like it is and was. He uses a fascinating style of dealing with all those factors through a first person accounting and interpretation of events as they took place. And, he ponders the future of supplemental feeding of wintering elk as a management technique as nobody else could – or even dares." —Jack Ward Thomas, University of Montana Professor Emeritus and former Chief of the US Forest Service
"What one gets in Where Elk Roam is one of those rare gems of insight on wildlife biology most of us struggle a career for, but Smith has bound it all up nicely between two covers in a very readable and forthright way." —Douglas Smith, Yellowstone National Park biologist and author of Decade of the Wolf
Awards Received
Where Elk Roam was honored in 2011 with a Montana Book Award​
Where Elk Roam:
Conservation and Biopolitics of Our National Elk Herd
is for anyone interested in:
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The biology and conservation of elk
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Elk hunting
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Predator-prey relationships
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Wildlife biologists' work to sustain wildlife
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How economic and political considerations can over-ride science in resource policy-making
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Globe Pequot/Lyons Press
Paperback Published 2011, 272 pages
ISBN: 978-0-7627-7074-8
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