State plans to reduce Cache elk herd

In the 25 years she has fed elk on the Millville Face, rancher Jacky Hancey had never seen a more gorgeous collection of bulls than the bunch that came in regularly last winter.

"We've never had that many bulls," Hancey said, noting that at least 30 of the 72 bulls in the group had antlers of six points or better. "That herd really drew a lot of attention last year."

It's unlikely that the turnout will be as impressive this winter, though, because state wildlife officials plan to reduce the number of elk on the face in an attempt to resuscitate the region's flagging mule deer herd.

Last year the Division of Wildlife Resources planted 5,000 bitterbrush plants on the hillsides south of Millville Canyon to encourage deer to utilize the area in winter. Officials recently told the volunteers who run the feeding operation that the number of elk on the face must be reduced to avoid trampling the new plants.

"We decided we needed to get aggressive and get in and start rehabbing on our own wildlife management areas," said Justin Dolling, DWR's Northern Region wildlife manager. "And given that mule deer across the Intermountain West are struggling and elk are thriving ... we felt our resources would be better suited to provide winter mule deer habitat than elk feeding."

The state will probably allow more hunting in the area this fall to reduce elk numbers and push the survivors toward Hardware Ranch, Dolling said. Ideally, he added, there wouldn't be more than 75 elk in the area, and if that total went down to 25 it would give the new plants an even better chance.

None of that mollified Hancey, 77, a Millville rancher who began feeding elk in 1983.

Her father, a game warden at the time, helped build a fence to keep elk away from farmers' fields and implemented a feeding program after several hundred elk died that winter. In those days the state was attempting to increase the elk population, and — with official blessing but not much in the way of financial assistance — Hancey maintained the feeding tradition.

"It's become quite a nice herd of elk, and this disgusts me," Hancey said. "I don't think we should sit still for this. They're part of our heritage and they need to be there."

Hancey argued that the Millville Face "has never been a nice, green mountain, and it's never gonna be," something Dolling disagreed with.

In the 1950s and 1960s, he said, the hills east of Millville were covered with sagebrush and the occasional juniper tree.