Monarch of the West Wapiti

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I am blessed to live amidst some of nature's grandest beasts and battlements (though I pay for this privilege in a great many ways). But it's not necessary to have an Old Rube grazing within sight of your doorstep to be spiritually renewed by the knowledge that, even in these crowded and stressful times, creatures as magnificent as the wapiti are still out there, somewhere — most of them roaming public lands . . . the mountains, forests, and meadows owned by, and accessible to, all Americans.

The very morning of the cows plodded in, Old Rube pulled out.

Today, America's wapiti prosper . . . but tomorrow? James B. Ruch, director of the Colorado Wildlife Commission, recently pointed out three primary concerns for those of us interested in preserving elk and other large wildlife: habitat, habitat, and habitat. The message is there, clear and complete. As a growing human population with increasingly bloated material expectations places more and more stress on a rapidly decreasing acreage of unspoiled land, wildlife is bound to suffer. Including elk. Including Old Rube.

In fact, only part of Old Rube's turf over yonder across the valley is public land, a small green square of America's checkerboard commons. The rest belongs to a friend by the name of Helen, an 82-year-old rancher who was born and has lived her entire life on the land homesteaded by her parents in the 1800s. This summer Helen found it financially necessary to open the backpasture gates and allow her cattle to range out onto a wild tag-end of her ranch that normally goes ungrazed — except by Old Rube and his crew.

And so one bright July morning came the lowing beeves. Beeves to fatten in those rich meadows where Old Rube grazed away his summers and from which he trumpeted his unfettered autumnal lust . . . beeves to trample the delicate understory of Old Rube's midday aspen havens . . . beeves to foul the sparkling rills in which Old Rube quenched his bullish thirst.

Adequate habitat will produce wapiti to thrill future generations.

The very morning the cows plodded in, Old Rube pulled out. I haven't seen him since. Now, instead of the ivory antlers and distinctive white rump patches of wapiti, when I gaze across the valley through my binoculars I see only whitefaces, black Angus, and beefalo.

It would be easy, almost natural, to blame ranchers such as Helen for forcing more than 90% of all the lower 48's elk to bottle up on public land. But it's not quite that simple. I can't fault Helen for doing what she must in order to pull a modest living from her own deeded property. Not only is it her right as a landowner, but by so doing she is also helping Old Rube and his kind. How? By keeping a large chunk of prime wildlife habitat out of the hands of developers. One less in love with the land — and that would be just about anyone — would have sold out long ago, forced by the financial pressures weighing on small ranchers and farmers today to snap up the quick millions proffered by the ever-present real estate sharks eager to devour unspoiled acreage, extracting the wealth and leaving a stain of overpriced riverfront subdivisions.

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