May 2001
Contact: Dave Ware, (360) 902-2509

Rocky Mountain elk and downhill skiing enthusiasts have co-existed in central Washington's Mission Ridge area for 35 years.

The Mission Ridge ski resort operates on land owned and managed by the U.S. Forest Service and the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife (WDFW) through special-use agreements.

The WDFW part of the ski area is in the Chelan County portion of the Colockum Wildlife Area. The Colockum's 88,000 acres include the sub-alpine zone of 6,875-foot Mission Peak down to the West Bar's desert bunchgrass prairie. The Colockum was purchased during the 1950s and '60s primarily as both summer and winter range for elk and other wildlife species, including mule deer, bighorn sheep and forest grouse. Its varied habitats are used by animals ranging from eagles and owls to cougars and bears.

Funds for the Colockum acquisition came from the Pittman-Robertson Act Federal Aid Program (from excise taxes on hunting equipment), with contractual requirements that management and use of the area support designated species and WDFW's mission to preserve, protect and perpetuate wildlife and maximize wildlife recreation opportunities.

Colockum elk spend winter in the lowlands while skiers use the high country for recreation. The elk move up in elevation as spring and summer advance, to give birth to calves and to forage on the greening slopes. In the fall they begin returning to the lowlands.

This seasonal movement of elk has coincided relatively smoothly with the seasonal movement of recreational skiers.

By late November or early December, snow cover is usually adequate for skiing the slopes of Mission Ridge; at the same time, most elk have moved to the lowlands for the winter and are undisturbed by ski resort operations. By April, skiing interest and participation is waning with snow conditions, just in time to let elk move up to calve and feed without disturbance.

Recent interest in shifting that time-sensitive use of the area between elk and skiers has raised concern with WDFW wildlife biologists.

Snow-making technology has advanced so that the ski resort would be able to begin operating in late October, with skiers on the slopes by the first of November. In the same way, skiing might also be extended longer into the spring.

Elk are still moving from high to low elevations in late October and early November. WDFW studies show that approximately half of the Colockum herd -- about 2,500 animals -- move through the periphery of the ski area at that time. Studies also show that more than half the elk move into the area by May and spend summer near the ski slopes.

Colockum elk are currently in decline, with not enough calves born or surviving to adulthood to replace older animals that die. WDFW biologists believe that decline is due to two factors— reduced forage and increased disturbance.

Elk forage has been reduced by changes in vegetation, both man-caused and natural. Elk graze largely on grasses, and reductions in grass acreage (much of it once in the federal Conservation Reserve Program) may be affecting their diet. Advanced stages of natural vegetation growth may also be reducing grasses available to elk. Drought conditions have probably played a role, too.

Elk can be disturbed easily by chronic human use of their habitat. Many elk studies throughout the west have long shown that elk do not tolerate human disturbance well, and can be moved out of critical habitat prematurely. Over time, displaced elk do not fare well and both individual animal and overall herd health is compromised.

Both of these factors have led to an increase in problems with elk damaging private agricultural croplands. The less forage and more disturbance elk encounter in their natural setting, the more likely they are to move on to these lands and damage valuable crops. Often offending elk have to be purposely killed, adding to the overall herd decline.

Wildlife biologists believe that adding the disturbance of snow-making operations in the Mission Ridge area before mid-November or after the first of May would stress elk even more. It could be a final straw for a herd already in decline.

Historically, Mission Ridge ski area has opened prior to Thanksgiving weekend only three out of 10 years and closed by mid-April. WDFW officials have offered to allow the ski area to always open the weekend prior to Thanksgiving, and move the closing two weeks later, to May 1. This would give Mission Ridge ski area the ability to guarantee a ski season opening the weekend before Thanksgiving, and leave elk undisturbed.

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