Tag: elk

Sprawl of the Wild

Sprawl of the Wild

In 2005, I moved to Colorado’s Front Range to work for the Rocky Mountain Bullhorn, an independent weekly in Fort Collins.

My first article for the Bullhorn — and one of my favorite pieces that I penned for the newspaper — covered illegal poaching of elk in Estes Park, outside Rocky Mountain National Park, and the proliferation of elk in the region due to a lack of natural controls (read: wolves and predators).

Years later, poaching remains a problem, wolf reintroduction and hunting in the national park remains controversial, and wildlife management remains a general enigma in the Estes Valley.

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Sprawl of the Wild

As their population surges, elk in Estes Park become easy targets for poachers.

By Joshua Zaffos

Rocky Mountain Bullhorn, January 27, 2005

If ever an elk was a martyr, his name was Samson. A hulking 1,000-pound, eight-by-nine-point bull, Samson probably could have run for mayor of Estes Park in the mid ’90s he was so popular. Tourists and locals visited him at his hangout at the YMCA of the Rockies, south of town near Mary’s Lake, and just about everyone found joy in snapping his photo and feeding him treats.

“Samson would stop right in the road for you to give him an apple,” recalls Bryan Michener, a long-time resident and a member of the Estes Valley Improvement Association, a nonprofit valley citizens’ group. One time, a couple even tried to saddle their 2-year old on Samson’s shoulders for a Christmas photo.

“Like he was in Santa’s herd,” Michener says, as he sips coffee with some friends at the Notchtop Bakery and Café in Estes Park. Still, Samson was a (relatively) wild animal, and Michener says the handouts and human contact amounted to “a death warrant.”

On the night of November 11, 1995, Randal Francis, a resident of Lakewood, illegally killed Samson on the lawn of the YMCA with a crossbow. During Francis’ trial for the wildlife poaching crime, one YMCA staff worker told the court that the bull elk “was so trusting of people that [Francis] could have walked up to Samson and slit his throat. There was no sport in the killing.”

The incident brought nationwide attention to Estes Park and raised awareness of wildlife poaching to a new level.

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