Hankster,

Re: sources, a book called "Feeding at the Public Trough" is where I first read the story about cheap grazing leases, public subsidies to ranchers, if you'll allow, and that only 3% of US beef comes from the publicly grazed lands. (Most comes from modern feed lots.) The book is dated, 1970 I think, and I've since read in sources which I don't recall that it's down around 2% now. If you really want the source, one of us needs to do the research. I don't care about convincing you enough to bother doing it again.

Regarding your question about the OR elk and helecoptter, I don't know, but it's plausible. Blacktail deer forage optimally in edge habitat, clear cuts adjacent to standing timber. Elk forage optimally on grasslands. It's entirely possible that the elk herd increased as clearcuts expanded in area. Then as the reprod (replanted young trees) grew higher and shaded out grass and forbs in the former clear cuts, elk forage probably decreased and could no longer support the larger elk herd.

As to why not cull the herd to conform to the amount of available habitat, you're getting at the very heart of wildlife management politics. Hunters want large elk herds because they like to hunt. They don't like to hear ODFW reports that the herd is too large for its habitata. And hunters buy licenses and tags that help support ODFW. And hunters complain to their state legislators, who are often dumber than a stump in the middle of a clearcut when it comes to natural resource management and most issues that they deal with on behalf of their electorate, but I digress. So ODFW is caught between a rock and a hard place. Leave things as they are and nature will take its course, and the herd size will decline. Or allow what hunters regard as too high a harvest rate, also causing the herd to decline. Oh, and chasing the elk off farmland might be because OR has a law like WA that requires ODFW to pay farmers and landowners for damage caused by elk. Hence chasing with helecopters, like that makes any kind of sensible wildlife management.

So the short answer to your question is: politics. Thought you might like that.

Sg