Solano County's tule elk paradise
By Barry Eberling
Monday, September 12, 2005
FAIRFIELD - About 10
miles from the hustle of Fairfield-Suisun, the tule elk sound their bugle of a
cry and joust antler-to-antler.
Grizzly Island Wildlife Area in Suisun
Marsh is one of about 22 sites across the state where the tule elk are making a
comeback. Suisun Marsh may be famous for its waterfowl, but it's also elk
country.
"Out here, it's pretty well predator- and disease-free," state
Department of Fish and Game biologist Joe Schwennesen said. "It's elk paradise,
really."
The exception is during the annual tule elk hunt. Selected
hunters can kill a certain number of elk to keep the herd at its ideal size of
about 100.
Grizzly Island is closed to the public through Sept. 23 for
this year's hunt. But people at various other times of the year can hike there
and look for tule elk for no charge.
"Really, it's not something that's
too widely known," Schwennesen said.
Tule elk once were so plentiful
when Solano County was pristine that they demanded attention. Heather Davis in
1832 sailed along the Carquinez Strait in a schooner and saw the tule elk just
keep coming, coming and coming.
Elk swam by his boat in the hundreds.
The animals were crossing from an island to the mainland in this area that would
become southern Solano County.
"We came desperately close to crashing
into several of these large animals, but after half-an-hour, we made our way
through the herd safely," Davis wrote in his journal.
An estimated
half-million tule elk roamed California about the time Davis took his schooner
trip. Settlers in coming years turned elk habitat into farms. Most of all, they
hunted the elk for meat and hides, particularly after the 1849 Gold Rush.
By 1874, tule elk had virtually disappeared from Solano County,
California and the world. A law passed in 1873 mandating a two-year prison
sentence for shooting elk had come far too late.
The few remaining elk
had an unlikely savior - Henry Miller, a famous (and in some circles infamous)
land baron who ran a huge cattle ranch in the Kern County area of the southern
Central Valley.
Miller's methods in obtaining his million-acre empire
caused controversy. The book "Cadillac Desert" tells how Miller took advantage
of a swamplands reclamation act that gave land to people who could navigate it
in a boat and promised to drain it. Miller used a wagon to drag a boat across
arid land.
It may be a legend. Miller's descendants prefer a version
that has Miller navigating the land in boat after two years of torrential
rainfalls. Either way, Miller used a swamplands law to obtain property in a
semi-desert.
Still, this hard-nosed businessman had a soft spot for tule
elk. When workers discovered two elk on his land in 1875, Miller protected them.
He protected the elk even as the herd grew over the years and began causing
damage to his cattle operation.
This herd provided the nucleus for other
herds established in different parts of California. The state Department of Fish
and Game transported seven Kern County tule elk to Solano County in 1977.
The state desperately needed new places to bring elk. The number of tule
elks had increased to about 1,000, too many to fit on existing reserves. The law
forbid using hunting to thin out the herds until the overall number of elk
reached 2,000.
Suisun Marsh had changed since the elk had disappeared
from there a century before. The marsh no longer was a wild area of tidal
wetlands. Humans had built levees to tame the land, flooding and draining it at
will. Grizzly Island from 1875 to 1950 was used by farmers to grow asparagus and
graze dairy cows.
By 1977, Grizzly Island was a state preserve known for
waterfowl. And, once again, it became a tule elk home.
Nothing keeps the
elk on Grizzly Island except sloughs. And, as Davis found out in the Carquinez
Strait all those years ago, tule elk can swim. Usually, they don't.
"They've got a good place, they've got good food," said Larry Wyckoff of
Fish and Game. "They've got to do a lot of swimming to get off. I think they
stay because it's good habitat."
There are exceptions.
In
February, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and Department of Fish and Game
relocated three elk from San Luis National Wildlife Refuge to Grizzly Island.
San Luis had too many elk. One hope was that the three bulls would help with the
genetic pool of the Grizzly Island herd.
The three elk arrived at
Grizzly Island by trailer.
"One of them decided - I don't know what he
decided," Wyckoff said with a laugh. "It ran out of the trailer and kept
running. We were wondering where it was on the island. The next thing you know,
we've got a report from the tower over at Travis (Air Force Base) that there was
an elk hanging around over there."
Next, the elk showed up at the Jepson
Prairie vernal pool preserve owned by the Solano Land Trust. Jepson Prairie is
located next to Highway 113 in rural central Solano County, about 12 miles from
Grizzly Island.
"He was just hanging out," said Ken Poerner of the
Solano Land Trust.
Fish and Game eventually recaptured the elk, but
didn't return it to Grizzly Island. It was transported to another herd.
People who travel to Grizzly Island to see the elk may or may not be
successful. Sometimes, the elk wander to remote corners of Grizzly Island. They
might even leave Fish and Game property and roam an adjacent duck club.
"I won't say they are easy to find," Wyckoff said. "But if they are
there, you can't miss them."
People who come to search for elk should be
prepared to rough it a little.
"There are no paved walking trails out
here," Schwennesen said. "It's walking on a levee top, maybe a lot of mud, maybe
a lot of weeds."
But the rewards are there. Fall offers a chance to
watch the bulls bugle and joust with each other.
"The sight of two males
charging and the violent clacking of their antlers is something to be remembered
and experienced - from a safe distance," a Fish and Game promotional book on
Grizzly Island says.
Spring brings the chance to see wobbly tule elk
calves spending their first few days in the world.
It's all part of life
in Solano County's tule elk paradise.
Tule Elk Facts:
Reach Barry Eberling at 425-4646 Ext. 232 or at beberling@dailyrepublic.net
http://www.dailyrepublic.com/articles/2005/09/12/local_news/news01.txt