SEQUIM — Gary and Janice Smith’s Maple View Farm is, to their chagrin, habitat for one of the city’s most beloved tourist attractions — a herd of 80 Roosevelt elk.
The animals have settled in for the winter on their Schmuck Road land 2 miles northeast of town.
Now, Gary said, they’re threatening the survival of the farm he and his family have worked for three generations.
“They’ve been a problem for five years, and caused some damage each year,” he said.
“This past year, it’s been much more intense, because they’re spending much more time here. They got a taste for our corn crop, and damaged 30 percent of that field.
“When there was no more corn for them to eat, they went to the hybrid cauliflower.”
The elk consumed a field of leafy plants valued at $25,000, he said.
Before the animals could get to another cauliflower field, the Smiths erected a $3,000 electric fence around it.
So far, that’s working.
But the Smiths also grow grass in pastures for their 350 milk cows. And alfalfa. Elk like those crops, too.
So the Smiths are in favor of the Jamestown S’Kallam tribe’s proposal to move the herd far away from Sequim, and soon.
Scare tactics failed
During the day, he and his sons tried to scare off the elk, but they don’t seem in any hurry to run away.
Both bulls and cows instead stomp their feet at people, Gary said. Then, “at night, they come out and feed.”
“We were trying to think of every possible way to get the elk out of there,” added Janice.
Scarecrows worked with the birds, so she decided to try them on the mammals — and was shocked at the result.
“They (the elk) murdered them,” she said.
“We put four 8-foot-tall scarecrows out there, and they tore them to shreds. There were hoofprints all around them,” so she knew not to blame teenagers or some other predator.
The elks’ night visits have kept the family up, Janice added. After they ate the cauliflower, her husband told her, “Now I guess I’ll get my sleep.”
In truth, that’s unlikely.
The elk are “creating a real stress on our farm,” Gary said.
“Agriculture is pretty fragile in the valley; there are only a few of us left.”
