GTNP Elk Hunt Regs Revised

Grand Teton National Park officials plan to implement changes in the 2013 elk reduction program which is conducted in collaboration with the Wyoming Game and Fish Department and designed to help regulate the Jackson elk herd. These changes will be made in part to reduce the chance of grizzly bear-hunter encounters. Among the changes are limiting the possession of ammunition to seven cartridges daily to decrease the potential for elk “wounding loss,” limiting the number of shots that can be fired at a group of elk, requiring the use of non-lead ammunition by hunters, closing the portion of the Snake River bottom between Deadman’s Bar and Ditch Creek due to poor visibility there, opening the area between the Gros Ventre River  and the road to Kelly to help replace the loss of the area being closed, and opening hunt area 79 to appropriate license holders for hunt area 75 for two weeks at the beginning of the season.  The changes were prompted by the killing of an adult grizzly bear last November when hunters participating in the elk hunt were charged by the bear which failed to break off the charge when sprayed with pepper spray by the hunters.  Park officials add that grizzly bear-hunter conflicts in Grand Teton have escalated as the distribution and density of grizzly bears has increased.