— a semi-regular humor column by Maurice Austin —
Island Tourist Elk, photo courtesy of Walt Corbin
Yet again Orcas Island is beset with immigrants that despoil the natural vegetation, leave stool everywhere, and have little regard for local traffic laws. No, I’m not referring to 4th of July revelers, or recent island tourists, or even celebrity investors—I’m referring to the latest quadrupedal migrants from the mainland: two (allegedly bull) elk.
Likely their fate will align with that of last year’s bear, which eventually fell for some bait and woke up in the Rockport or Marblemount vicinity with a tranq hangover while still licking its chops and half-dreaming of fat-filled Char-Broil drip pans and three-story bird-feeders.
If you’re up and down Hwy 20 maybe 10 months out of the year, and regularly glimpse the Nooksack herd (yeah, they’re called the Nooksack herd even though they frequent the Skagit River Valley—get over it) around Bird’s View or Rockport, the few times you’ll actually glass them you’ll likely only spot only cows. Ever wondered where the hunt-able bulls hang out? Now we know!
Fine and well, though if the intent of spreading the population is the reason for the migration, well, we’ve gotta problem, Adam, unless one is ready to drop rack and morph into Eve. Not that I’m judgmental or anything—you two bulls have a fine vacation, okay? I’d sell you a cake any day of the week.
I mean, it’s not who you love that matters. It’s that you love that matters.
Of course, it might just be that more than two made the swim, likely lured by the prospect of what few shreds of browse remain given current Orcas Island deer populations. Recently on a drive from Eastsound to Sea Acres at 4:45 AM, I became convinced that the deer are out to kill unwary motorists, at least at that hour of the day. Heck I found myself short of breath and poising my foot over the brake pedal as stumps came into view around a bend. Lost count of scrawny shoulder-munchers in the mid-30s.
The deer are bad enough…can you imagine a simultaneous population of elk, weighing in at 4 or 5 times the average Orcas blacktail? I’ve seen firsthand the results of vehicle/elk collisions along Hwy 410 during ski season, and can vouch that there are no winners in such encounters. The dismemberment and/or decapitation is disturbingly mutual. That’s at 50+ mph, though. On the island, your Prius doing 25—which is as fast as I got up to between the ferry and Eastsound the other evening, sheesh—would likely bounce off a 700 lb. bull’s side, likely leading to the animal disinterestedly raising its head and licking—aye, nibbling—your hood ornament. So perhaps consider removing anything that looks like a potato start from your vehicle aeriel….
Crop and fence and other property damage—even to potted pants—are cited by landowners in the Skagit Valley as reasons to cull the heard, and eat them, whereas the Stillaguamish, Sauk-Suiattle and Lummi tribes cite the Point Elliot Treaty and want to see the heard grow, in order to eat them. Animals, naturally, have responded by hanging out where neither side can eat them. And have proliferated to the point that the state is increasing hunting permits, so that somebody can eat them, hopefully.
Perhaps it is time for Orcas Island residents to come together as hosts to furry migrant populations of all sorts, and to embrace our newest recent residents, and encourage the transplant of a few cows to boot, or at least of elk that identify as cows, with or without antlers—not that any of us would condone an effort at libidinal deprograming—whatever, and maybe throw in a couple of wolves or six to eat them so we don’t have to, since after all do you know what a few determined elk would do to your geraniums, to your deer fencing?
Besides elk, elsewhere in the local social media, folks are disturbed by fireworks, and annoyed by military planes. Having just spent the 4th at mom’s in Spanaway, where “Safe and Sane” is about as popular as “Just Say No” and JBLM C-130s circle endlessly, I gotta say: whine on, you crazy diamonds. We’re lucky to live where elk would migrate to, rather than from.
And no, not just elk. Look–let’s keep the island worthwhile that way, okay?
