Hundreds of elk dozed in the Sunday afternoon sunshine at the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife’s Oak Creek feeding station last week.
Most stood on straight, stiff legs. Some lay on the thin blanket of snow, and a few, mainly cows with youngsters, moved about restlessly.
The eyelids of almost all, large and small, drooped in the sun-warmed somnolence that preceded feeding time.
Cars and pickups already filled the close-up parking spaces, a few feet from the feed-lot fence adjacent to the visitor center. Plenty of parking space remained, however, even on a Sunday when the snowpack oozed and puddled up in the sunshine.
Shortly after noon, I’d parked a few yards from the visitor center to await a 1:30 p.m. daily feeding at the station. Already dozens of people leaned on the fence, many with cameras, and watched the elk doze.
While my wife Darlene took her pal, Nora the Schnauzer, for a walk, I stood with cameras and watched the elk doze.
A bald eagle stood tall in a tree near the feed barn, apparently reticent to move far from an elk-carcass smorgasbord, darkly visible on the hillside.
As I strolled east toward an old barn, two large bulls approached one another, gingerly, it seemed, like veterans of many battles willing to let bygones be bygones.
They touched antlers _ large enough to earn them “prime bull” status _ and slipped them into a tangle. Yet, they didn’t push, so their neck and shoulder muscles remained relaxed. They seemed more asleep than awake.
I watched for awhile then went to the visitor center to register for a truck tour among the animals. I passed the car as Darlene lifted Nora back inside. A sign prohibited dogs, Darlene said, and she didn’t want a problem.
At the visitor center, I signed up for a tour with volunteer tour guide Jim Andrews. He retired as the Police Chief of Toppenish, where he worked for 30 years.
Fifteen minutes or so later, Andrews picked me up from along the fence, and I joined a group in the back of an old military truck for the tour.
I sat up close to the cab, but on the wrong side. The upright diesel exhaust belched fumes in my face.
The truck moved slowly among the elk, so that details not seen from beyond the fence became clearly visible, such as: one large bull limped dramatically with a misshapen hoof; a cow moved agonizingly with a rolling gate caused by a broken right-front leg; and three spotted calves, dangerously young for mid-January, clung close to their mothers.
Andrews said the injured elk must fend for themselves, as a matter of policy, and that a number of injured animals come back every year. When they’re dangerously stressed, he said, it’s evident in their drooping heads and their gaunt physical conditions.
“They’re very strong animals, and they have a real a strong will to live. I bet you, she’ll be fine,” Andrews said about the injured cow.
Andrews said biologists have no definite explanation for the spotted calves. They may have been conceived during winter feeding last year, with a young bull finding a cow to mate.
“They’re half the size of a regular calf, and their chance of survival is fair to poor and depends on the weather,” he said.
Perhaps 1,250 elk waited in the feed lot, Andrews said, with some qualifying as “prime herd bulls.” He called some of the bulls “rag-horn bulls,” or animals about three years old. The prime herd bulls have larger racks and weigh more, in the 900-pound range.
If the weather worsens in February, the number of animals at the station will increase, including many older prime herd bulls, to as many as 2,000 or more.
“When the winter is really bad, we can get as many as 3,000 animals in here,” he said. “And that’s only about one-third of the number of elk that’s in this area. If it gets worse, February is a good time to come in and see the prime herd bulls because they do drift in here.”
Andrews said the WDFW aims “to regulate the Yakima herd and keep it down to about 9,500 animals.
“We have a spike-only hunt in this area,” he said. “That’s because we’re trying to keep the herd’s genetics up. We’re giving the prime bulls a better chance to live. The bigger the bull, the nicer the calf that comes out, and the calf has a better chance of living.”
While the five-year Yakima Elk Herd Plan (published in Dec. 2002, and found at wdfw.wa.gov./w1m/game/elk/yakima.htm) lists a number of goals and objectives, a prime goal for the Oak Creek winter feeding program (started in 1945) is to keep elk off of private land, especially orchards.
“Why we feed here is to keep these animals out of the orchards,” Andrews said. “We don’t feed them to keep them alive. If we were trying to bulk them up, we would give them twice as much hay as we’re giving them now, (which is) just enough to carry them through the winter.”
Elk damage, he added, could run into millions of dollars.
After the tour, I spoke about the program’s funding (75 percent from the 1939 Pitman-Robinson Act funds) with WDFW bologist and Wildlife Area Manager John McGowan. He oversees the Oak Creek and six other operations.
And, as usual, funding grows more and more scarce.
“Cost of hay and the cost of transport has gone up considerably,” McGowan said. “Over all the sites (the seven that he administers) we’re feeding over 4,600 elk daily. So, you take 4,600 times 10 pounds. That’s 46,000 pounds of hay, and that’s 23 tons of hay every day. That’s almost a semi load of hay every day in just a normal winter (mid-December to early March).
“So it’s very expensive,” he continued. “The per-ton cost we estimate is $175, and it may be closer to $200 this year. Twenty-three times $200, and that’s the daily cost.
“The cost of fuel has driven up the trucking and the cost of getting it in here. And it’s driven up the cost of the haying operation, the cost to raise hay,” McGowan said. “And all of those fuel costs, the water costs and the electricity, everything has gone up. So, that is driving the cost of commodities up.”
Has the operating buget has also increased?
“No, the budget hasn’t gone up at all,” McGowan said. “I’ve had the same budget for the past six bienniums, about 12 years. It hasn’t changed a bit.”
When necessary during those years, however, the legislature made additional funding for feeding available.
“And we just lost the funding for Americorps (which allowed for volunteers from around the country to help with the feeding programs and other on-site projects),” he said. “This is the first year in about eight years that I haven’t had the Americacorps, and that’s a big loss.”
A bit later, when McGowan drove one of the two hay-laden trucks among the hungry elk, visitors pressed shoulder-to-shoulder along the fence.
Darlene and I watched for awhile, and she stuffed our donation into one of the boxes, to help pay for the truck tour.
Then I carried the 4-pound Nora under my arm to the far side to the parking area _ didn’t want her to start a stampede _ so she could potty and sniff snow before we headed home.

If you go
The Oak Creek elk feeding station is about 150 miles from Walla Walla, off of US Highway 12 about 20 miles west of Yakima.
The viewing is free, but a number of visible donation boxes highlight the program’s need for funding. About 75 percent of its funds come from the Pitman-Robinson Act, passed in 1939.
A winter feeding program was started on the Oak Creek Unit in 1945. A large parking and viewing area with an interpretive center allows more than 100,000 visitors to observe the elk each winter.
Information about the programs may be found at www.nachesvalleychamber.com/info/elkfeeding.html and at wdfw.wa.gov/lands/r3oakcrk.htm or by using Google to search for Oak Creek Elk Feeding.