Re: Fading Gold: The Decline of Aspen in the West

For years, Rocky Mountain National Park has had an overabundance of elk. As part of a study of their impact, a section in the Beaver Meadows area was fenced off to see how the vegetation would recover without the elk eating new shoots or scraping the velvet off of their antlers, destroying the cambium layer on more mature Aspen trunks. It has been amazing to see how much vegetation has regenerated, and how quickly. Managing the elk population has created a lot of controversy among the conservationists, but the study has clearly demonstrated that a better balance enhances the viability of the forest. The residents of Estes Park will readily attest to the fact that fewer elk would be a good thing for their gardens as well. That's not to say that the elk should be wiped out, but lacking their natural predators, they have proliferated beyond what balanced processes would allow.

Ed Frey
Loveland, CO