Slugs & Elk

Slugs & Elk

David Sparks Ph.D.
David Sparks Ph.D.
A huge part of being associated with sportsman type activities is conservation. Look at all the outfits such as Ducks Unlimited, Pheasants Forever, Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation and so on that devote tremendous amounts of energy to conservation of the wilderness. We’ll talk about that more in a minute.

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has come up with some serious money to do a study in the forests of the Northwest in which, amongst other things, biologists will be doing counts on the numbers of slugs and snails that exist along with their health. I had a conversation recently with Fish and Wildlife’s Karla Drewsen and basically asked if that was money well spent. Given that everybody is broke in this country, one might be skeptical. I thought her answer was excellent. “I guess what I would ask is what is the tie-in between slugs and snails and the interests of a hunting and fishing guy who loves the outdoors. Do those play a part in the overall food chain? They are all part of the health of the environment... The environment as a whole, the habitat as a whole. When you look at the part that’s slugs, snails and those critters play in keeping the habitat healthy and keeping the ecosystem healthy which then will ultimately benefit the huntable species. It’s hard when you think about deer and elk or ducks and geese and those hunting species just when people can go out and hunt them but when you look at the health of the environment as a whole this is a part of a holistic approach I think.

Previous ReportAvoiding traps
Next ReportKodiak deer and caribou