Fire singes acreage, hunting fences

COWICHE — Master hunters are apt to be very busy this fall and winter and into next spring. The Cowiche Mill Road Fire saw to that.

In addition to charring 6,200 acres, including more than two-thirds of the Cowiche Canyon Conservancy’s Snow Mountain Ranch property, the fire also burned nearly three miles of elk fence along the Cowiche unit of the Oak Creek Wildlife Area.

Right now, that’s not a problem, because it’s the dry season and the elk are higher in the hills. But when the need for winter forage or the pressure from hunters move them into the area, which serves as elk winter range, the orchards once protected by that elk fence will now have to be protected by qualified members of the state’s Master Hunter program.

“We’re going to try to put them to work hazing and hunting those animals,” said Anthony Novack, a deer and elk conflict specialist with the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife.

“There’s a good likelihood elk will get through. Some of the fence is burned but still standing, and it might fool them. But it’s a paper tiger — you could probably go up and push it over.”

Replacing the fence won’t be easy. Counting all of the associated surveying and cultural-resources assessments, elk fence construction costs roughly $100,000 per mile. Having the WDFW’s Eastern Washington construction shop in Yakima could lessen that cost because “roughly 80 percent of the cost is in labor,” said Ted Clausing, the department’s regional wildlife program manager.

And with state officials cutting budgetary excess at every turn, elk-fence issues aren’t likely to rank as a high priority.

“The last time we had an elk fence burn up (during the 2005 School Fire in the Blue Mountains), we actually had to live for several years with no fence at all,” said WDFW regional director Jeff Tayer. “That was during a lot, lot better budget climate than we’re in now, and it still took us several years to raise the money … to rebuild that right where it was.”

And in a best-case scenario, the WDFW might not want to rebuild the elk fence where it burned last month, but to extend it. The department is in discussions with landowners adjacent to the Oak Creek’s Cowiche unit over possibly extending the elk fence — should funding become available — across their private property, thereby increasing the elk’s winter range by about 1,500 acres.

That would also mean putting up not just three miles of elk fence, but closer to seven miles.

“If you get more winter range,” Clausing said, “you don’t have to feed as many.”

Department officials hope their winter elk-feeding stations west of the burned area will keep the animals from discovering the missing elk fence. “But if they get an extra dump of snow or get disturbed and start east,” Clausing added, “that’s when the problem will occur.”

And that’s when the master hunters will be getting the call.

“It’s not so bad if it’s a few elk,” Novack said. “But if it’s 100 elk in there, that can cause significant damage to an orchard. And even though (farmers) may not lose this year’s crop, the brousing (the elk) will do on those trees will negatively affect next year’s crop.”