After years of negotiations, a committee of interested parties has come up with a potential solution to the conflict between wildlife groups and ranchers over elk populations and crop damage.

The Regional Agriculture Wildlife Committee (RAWC) held an information meeting for the general public Thursday evening, to discuss a new general open season hunt, intended to reduce elk populations in key agricultural areas.

The RAWCs are regional committees under the auspices of the Provincial Agriculture Zone Wildlife Program of the Ministry of Environment (PAZWP), which is seeking to help ease damage to agricultural property and at the same time encourage healthy hunter/landowner relations.

Kootenay East MLA Bill Bennett addressed the meeting, and spoke of how “a committee of hunting, ranching and government representatives set competitiveness aside to try to resolve the conflict.

“So we've got to get past the age-old animosities that have existed in this valley for years,” Bennett said.

BC Agriculture Minister Steve Thomson also gave greetings at the meeting. Earlier in the day, Thomson had met with some of the groups involved.

RAWCs have been established in areas of the province where damage to standing crops from wildlife populations has been most severe. In the East Kootenay, this situation has caused considerable conflict between agricultural groups, like ranchers, and hunting organizations.

However, it is the hope that solutions developed by the RAWC and PAZWP will go a long way to ease this conflict.

To this end the Ministry of Environment, after input from PAZWP and the local RAWC, has instituted a new addendum to the hunting season — a general open season hunt on antlerless elk (cows and calves) to take place Sept. 20-30.

This hunt will take place in a “special hunt zone,” known as Zone X of 4-03. It runs up the Rocky Mountain Trench from the U.S. border to Findlay Creek, just south of Canal Flats, and is generally at or lower than 1,100 metres.

Zone X is an area comprised of key agricultural land where damage from wildlife has been greatest.

In essence, the purpose of the new general open season is to increase the number of hunters in the Zone X, to further reduce the population of so-called “homesteader elk” (those elk that don't migrate up to the mountains, and that subsequently cause an increased amount of damage to agricultural property) to the targets set by the Ministry of Environment's Kootenay Elk Management Plan.

A hundred or so members of the public were in attendance at the meeting, which was facilitated by Donna Thornton, Agriculture/Wildlife Specialist for Kootenay Boundary.

Faye Street, member of RAWC and the Kootenay Livestock Association, gave a brief history of the process, how the RAWC morphed out of the Kootenay Land Enfranchisement Program, a pilot project set up a few years ago, and comprised of wildlife groups, hunters groups and ranchers, to try to reach some common ground.

“One of the greatest things to come out of this since 2002 is that the ranching industry and hunting industry now understand each other more,” Street said. “We still have a long way to go and a lot of things to resolve, but we have a better understanding of each other and each other's needs. We need to keep up the hard work to further this understanding.”

Jeff Morgan, with the Ministry of Environment (MOE), spoke of how the new liberal hunting regulations for antlerless elk would hopefully help better manage the elk populations in agricultural lands.

MOE biologist Tara Szkorupa discussed the Elk Management Program, a review of elk populations over recent time, and an overview of the Elk Management Plan, including changes to elk hunting regulations.

Elk populations in the region have reached levels comparable to the early 1990s (14,000 in 2008), but with a higher population of non-migratory elk. “This means the potential for impact on agriculture is great,” Szkorupa said.

The 2010 elk hunt is as follows: Sept. 1-9 — bow hunt for antlerless elk (namely cows and calves); Sept. 10-19 — antlerless hunt for youth and seniors; Sept. 10-19 — spike bull season (also a new addition to the hunt); Sept. 20-30 — the new general open season on antlerless elk (and the main reason for Thursday evening's meeting, Szkorupa said); Oct. 1-10 — antlerless Limited Entry Hunt; Sept. 10-Oct. 20 — six-point or better.

Szkorupa added that the MOE recommended a reduction in the wintering elk population by 30 per cent over three to five years, with monitoring. “The General Open Season and Limited Entry Hunts of antlerless elk are the primary tools to achieve this target,” she said.