[Congressional Record Volume 153, Number 32 (Monday, February 26, 2007)]
[Senate]
[Pages S2232-S2233]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]

      By Mr. DORGAN:
  S. 684. A bill to clarify the authority of the Secretary of the 
Interior with respect to the management of the elk population located 
in the Theodore Roosevelt National Park; to the Committee of Energy and 
Natural Resources.
  Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, last week I was in my State of North 
Dakota where we have a wonderful national park. It is named after Teddy 
Roosevelt. He is the conservation- minded President who established the 
National Park System. What a remarkable man he was. What a remarkable 
leader for this country.
  We have a national park in the Badlands called the Theodore Roosevelt 
National Park. I picked up a newspaper to read that there are too many 
elk in the park, an overpopulation of elk, which is going to be a 
serious problem for the national park. The Park Service has had some 
discussion about what they might want to do to thin out or cull the elk 
herd in the national park. It has grown dramatically. They were talking 
in the newspaper article I read about considering hiring Federal 
sharpshooters to kill some elk and then use helicopters to remove their 
carcasses from the national park, for meat, I guess.
  It occurred to me there are times when the Government is completely 
devoid of common sense. I understand the Park Service says there is a 
prohibition on hunting in the national parks. On the other hand, it 
seems to me if you are hiring Federal sharpshooters to kill elk, they 
are going to be hunting those elk. It would make a lot more sense, to 
me, for a limited opportunity for qualified hunters to be able to hunt 
the elk in cooperation with Federal and State authorities. You do not 
need Federal sharpshooters to be paid. You do not need helicopters to 
haul the carcasses out of the park. All you need are hunters with a 
pickup truck or two, and you will be fine.
  Today I am introducing a piece of legislation that would allow the 
Park Service to allow local hunters in my State to work on a 
cooperative basis with the Federal and State authorities to thin that 
elk herd. Culling or thinning the elk herd, apparently, is a necessity. 
It is going to happen. The question is how. Do we spend a lot of money 
hiring sharpshooters and helicopters or do we do this in a commonsense 
way and allow hunters to go in, in a coordinated way and a careful way, 
to thin and cull that elk herd? It seems to me the latter is the better 
approach.

[[Page S2233]]

  The Park Service, by the way, at the moment also says my State is 
short of prairie dogs. Of course, that is not the case. We have far 
more prairie dogs than we know what to do with. The prairie dogs were 
born--I should say luckily for them--with a button nose and fur on 
their tail. Otherwise, they would essentially look like a rat. But we 
have a lot of prairie dogs.
  We are told by Federal authorities we need more prairie dogs, not 
because they think prairie dogs are cute, but apparently because they 
want to reintroduce something called the black-footed ferret in my 
State. The last person to spot a black-footed ferret in my State 
allegedly spotted a black-footed ferret some 20 years ago and was 
widely thought, according to local folklore, to have been drinking at 
the time.
  So there apparently are no black-footed ferrets that live in my 
State. They apparently went to warmer climates in the South some long 
time ago. Now we are told by Federal authorities we need more prairie 
dogs as food for black-footed ferrets who are going to be reintroduced 
to North Dakota.
  It is no small wonder, then, I look at some of these Federal agencies 
and wonder if there is any reservoir of common sense left. That is what 
persuaded me, last week, as I read the newspaper article about hiring 
Federal sharpshooters to shoot elk and hiring helicopters to take the 
deer meat out of our national park--a national park proudly named after 
one of the great hunters ever to occupy the White House, Teddy 
Roosevelt--I wondered whether there might be any common sense that 
might be applied that very simply says if we are going to thin or cull 
the elk herd in the Teddy Roosevelt National Park, let's do it the way 
Teddy Roosevelt would have anticipated it be done.
  No, I do not suggest opening up all national parks to hunting. I 
suggest in this limited circumstance that thinning and culling the elk 
herd in the Theodore Roosevelt National Park can best be done without a 
massive cost to the taxpayers and with an opportunity for qualified 
hunters who live in my State.
  I recognize that these issues pale in comparison to larger issues 
like the Iraq war and the health care crisis and fiscal policy that is 
off track, but it seems to me there are times when we ought to call 
attention even to comparatively small things that do not seem right.
  What I read last week about sharpshooters and helicopters not only 
reminded me of the lack of common sense with respect to this little 
issue, but it annoyed me once again with respect to the subject of 
prairie dogs. I spoke about prairie dogs long ago on this Senate floor 
when the prairie dogs took over a small picnic area, and the response 
of the Park Service was to decide to spend a quarter of a million 
dollars to move the picnic area rather than hire a couple of 16-year-
old kids to tell the prairie dogs they have to be elsewhere.
  But having said all that, I am introducing a piece of legislation 
dealing with the Theodore Roosevelt National Park--a park I am 
enormously proud of--and an elk herd that needs thinning and an 
opportunity for qualified North Dakota hunters who will use a 
substantial amount of common sense to solve a problem that can be 
solved quickly and easily.
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