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SALEM, Mo.--Missourians will get their first look at results from a survey of attitudes toward possible elk restoration at three meetings in the Ozarks later this month.
The meetings--Sept. 18 at Salem City Hall, Sept. 19 at the National Park Service office in Van Buren and Sept. 20 at Winona High School--will present findings of an elk reintroduction feasibility study conducted by the Missouri Department of Conservation. Each meeting will run from 6:30 to 9 p.m.
The study was designed to learn whether Missouri has sufficient habitat and public support to warrant reintroducing elk. The Conservation Department undertook the study at the request of Missouri^s largest citizen conservation organization, the Conservation Federation of Missouri.
The feasibility study was divided into an initial, biological phase to determine whether the state had suitable elk habitat and a sociological phase to gauge public opinion about the idea of reintroducing elk into the Show-Me State.
The first phase identified areas with enough room and suitable habitat to sustain free-ranging elk with minimal potential for conflict with agriculture, highway traffic and other human activities. Areas fitting the bill were Peck Ranch Conservation Area, the Potosi and Doniphan Ranger Districts of the Mark Twain National Forest and the Clearwater Lake, Current River and Sunklands areas of the Ozarks.
The second phase included four surveys to gauge citizens^ feelings about an experimental elk restoration program. Last fall, the Conservation Department included several questions about elk in a study of landowner and farmer-operator attitudes about deer. This spring, a telephone survey conducted by the Gallup Organization for the Missouri Department of Conservation asked Missourians for their opinions of elk restoration. Another statewide telephone survey of conservation opinions, also conducted by the Gallup Organization, included a question about elk restoration. Finally, the Conservation Department conducted a mail survey of farm operators in the 10 southern Missouri counties where elk restoration seemed biologically feasible.
The four-person Conservation Commission appointed by the governor will consider the results of the studies and citizens^ comments when deciding whether to reintroduce elk into the state.
Elk once roamed much of Missouri, but unregulated hunting extirpated the species here shortly after the turn of the century. The Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation, a national group dedicated to elk conservation and restoration, provide funding for the feasibility study.
- Jim Low
Uploaded: 9/12/2000
Uploaded: 9/12/2000