Better elk management needed in Montana

There’s an old saying in Montana that elk make people do stupid things. There’s a lot of truth to that saying. Whether you’re a dedicated elk hunter, a landowner with 400 head of elk on a haystack or a wildlife manager seeking to balance the needs of both interests, elk have a way of making simple issues complex, and bringing out some of our worst traits.

As elk populations expand in central and eastern Montana, and as elk use private land across the state more and more as refuge from two and four legged predators, new conflicts and challenges arise. These challenges create conflict...