NEAR MOUNT ST. HELENS - Harsh winter weather has put hundreds of elk at risk on a Washington state wildlife refuge near Mount St. Helens.

Now, a local man is doing what the state seems reluctant to do: stop elk starvation near the mountain.

On a sun-kissed day, towering Mount St. Helens is a stunning sight that makes a drive up to the famous landmark worth your time.

Local resident Mark Smith drives up here too, but he’s not interested in pretty scenery, he’s trying to save wildlife.

“They’re usually around here more in bad weather,” whispered Smith to his partner Bruce Barnes as a herd closed in on the men, “but they’re coming now. Let’s throw more hay out here.”

Barnes and Smith feed up to 80 elk across 100 acres of private land.



Smith has paid for the hay out of his own pocket - $3,000 last year – and his reason for doing it is simple: “After witnessing two elk die-offs in this valley, I do everything I can so we don’t see another one.”

In 2006, another lingering winter killed scores of elk on the Loowit Wildlife Refuge.

The death toll included massive bulls and young calves alike.

The same thing happened in 1999 when a hard late winter killed 80 elk.

Smith and Barnes agree that they’ve seen enough starving elk to last their lifetimes and now they are doing something about it.

Barnes and other volunteers who’ve joined his group, Mount St. Helens Rescue, have stepped forward with money and labor to help Smith feed the elk on his property.

Barnes told KATU “I’m not a big fan of starving elk and I don't want to see it in my back yard, so we’ve decided to help Mark with his supplemental feeding program.”

Smith added, “We have no plans to continue this as a regular season event; we do it only under an emergency situation. It’s just that our definition of an emergency this year has been about three weeks earlier than the state.”

Last year, under pressure from citizens, the Washington Wildlife Department fed the elk to stop starvation.

It cost the agency $63,000 to feed elk from mid-January to April 15.

They’ve recently announced plans to start the program up again this winter.

But according to state wildlife biologist Brain Calkins, the emergency elk feeding is not the preferred management plan.

“Our agency really doesn't favor winter feeding programs,” Calkins said.

Calkins and his supervisor, Sandra Jonker, told KATU that the refuge couldn’t support the elk that winter on the landscape.



This week, they counted nearly 600 elk on a refuge that supports 400, and food is scarce.

They said that the feeding creates a “no-win” situation that can actually make things worse.

“Even with the feeding program last year,” noted Calkins, “ we still had winter mortality. We basically fed the elk that could eat but we still had some that succumbed to the winter conditions.”

Jonker added, “We really would like the elk to sustain themselves on natural forage and bring that herd into balance so that we're not feeding them artificially.”

But Barnes countered that there is nothing natural about successive years of starvation on a state-managed wildlife refuge.

“The Washington Fish and Wildlife Department gains a lot of revenue from our fishing and hunting licenses," Barnes said, "so $63,000 is a drop in the bucket to feed animals and sustain them through the winter to stop starvation.”

Calkins noted that each winter the mudflow and Mother Nature are especially hard on the wintering elk.

The elk have little to eat, and he thinks the river is the reason.

"The river and its meanderings have really been our biggest challenge," Calkins said. "We've planted forage on the gravel bar areas and, at one point, we had about 40 to 50 acres completed that were beginning to become pretty good forage habitat. Then last year the river flooded and deposited material on top of it.”

Winter floods have doomed previous habitat restoration projects.

But last fall, Calkins had another idea.

He helped design and build three log walls that jut out and curve upstream. Each wall reaches about 100 yards in length and each helps to protect and stabilize the shoreline.

“Not only do the log walls move the river away from shore, but the sediment that accumulates here behind the walls will be good areas to plant riparian plants and shrubs and trees for elk forage,” Calkins said.

The project area cost $38,000, and Calkins said that a nearly $400,000 grant had recently been approved for more work.



But Mark Smith is skeptical.  He noted, “I would be reluctant to spend any state money - or any money at all - in stabilizing that river bank.”

Smith has led many volunteer efforts to enhance the available elk forage on the refuge the past 17 years.

“It’s hard to grow anything in the poor volcanic soil and then take a look four miles downriver at the dam," he said. "That is the source of many problems for the North Fork Toutle River."

He told KATU that there are two big problems with habitat projects:

First, the U.S Army Corps of Engineers built the “Sediment Retention Structure” or SRS, after the eruption of Mount St. Helens in 1980.

The dam holds back 250 million cubic yards of silt, ash, rocks and other debris that still flows down the mudflow and the river.

The trouble is that all of the sediment has backed up and shallowed up the river. As a result, the river moves erratically across the massive valley floor.

Smith insists that it is the nature of the river to shift and eat up more shoreline.

“You must look at that valley for what it is and not what you want it to be,” he said.

Still, Calkins is convinced that more logs and more structures will mean more new habitat for growing plants that the elk will eat.

But for this winter, time and weather will continue to take their toll on the elk that winter on the Loowit Wildlife Refuge until the state’s feeding program begins. The state hopes that will happen in the next two weeks.

For more information:

Mount St. Helens Preservation Society

Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife elk winter feeding