SEQUIM – For now, the Dungeness elk roam free across Happy Valley. But their future liberty is in limbo.
The Roosevelt elk, which number about 70 in the Sequim area, were headed out after their co-managers, the state Fish and Wildlife Department and the Jamestown S’Klallam tribe, decided last year to move them to the southern Olympic Peninsula.
But public outcry and a newspaper advertisement changed that.
The Sequim Elk Habitat Committee, voicing the sentiments of other local elk lovers, ran a display ad in January that reinvigorated another debate – over a fence to keep the ungulates south of U.S. Highway 101, away from the farms they’ve damaged.
The committee envisioned an 8-foot-high, 9-mile-long barrier from Blyn to the Dungeness River, paid for by state, local and tribal governments.
