I dont quite share your enthusiasm for all of that Frank.
Mind you i enjoy seeing the Elk, but i also feel there was a price to be paid for that.
And im not alone in having those feelings.
Fifty years ago if you were to take the 18 mile drive from Driftwood to Bennezete in the late afternoon you would (expect ) to see fifty or more deer on the round trip.
Today you would expect to see none, and chances are you wont be disappointed.
Yet you would be very apt to see lots of elk.
Nothing has changed along that stretch of road, except the type of animals you are apt to see along the way.
The argument can be made that the trees have gotten bigger, so there is less for the deer to eat.
BUT, also go back fifty years and take a drive from Sinnemahoning up rt 872 to the Sinnemahoning state park.
In the large fields along the way you could count lots of deer feeding. What were they eating? Sure as hell wasent branches from small trees.
Again, take that same ride today and you will probably see no deer at all in those same fields.
The Game Commission in the early 70s left it be known at a large and noisy public meeting at a local sportsmans club that they intended to drasticly reduce the size of the deer herd in that region. I personally attended that meeting.
And that is the price paid for the elk herd we have today.