SEQUIM — A task force considering a fence to protect the Dungeness herd of Roosevelt elk will discuss fence routes and money on Tuesday.
Cost estimates of a fence for the herd are “daunting,” said a biologist on the panel.
The Dungeness Elk Working Team, a panel of state, city and county officials and others interested in the herd’s fate, will convene for a briefing at the Jamestown S’Klallam Tribal Center in Blyn at 1 p.m. Tuesday.
The state Department of Fish and Wildlife plans another elk-team briefing on July 25, followed by a public presentation of fence options on July 30, at Carrie Blake Park in Sequim. No time has been set yet.
The Dungeness herd, expected to increase to 80 animals as this calving season ends, was headed out of its habitat a while back.
In February 2006, the Jamestown S’Klallam tribe, co-manager of the herd, announced that development in and around Sequim had made the area hostile to the ungulates.
They should be relocated, tribal chairman Ron Allen said then, since subdivisions and big wildlife don’t mix.
Also, the herd was causing considerable damage to farmland north of U.S. Highway 101.
Then, two summers ago, scores of elk lovers attended a public meeting hosted by the state Department of Fish and Wildlife, the herd’s other co-manager.
Many in the crowd called for a fence to keep the elk south of the highway, instead of trailers that would take the animals away, leaving only the metal elk at Sequim’s entrances.
So for the first half of last year, the Dungeness Elk Working Team wrangled with the question of where to build an 8-foot-high barrier.
Last summer, the team came up with a handful of routes, including one that would run along the highway’s edge from the 7 Cedars Casino to the Dungeness River, and others veering toward Happy Valley Road.
This Tuesday, a year and a few days after its last policy meeting, the elk team will reconvene and reconsider.
