Cattle rancher being compensated for damage caused by elk

JEFFERSON COUNTY, Colo. (KDVR) — It's called the Eagle Rock Ranch, located near Jefferson, Colorado. It's situated just a stone's throw from Kenosha Pass.
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That's where you'll find cattle rancher Dave Gottenborg.
'We run about 300 acres, and we run several hundred head of cattle,' said Gottenborg.
In addition to Gottenborgs' cattle, there is another animal that loves to pasture there as well, the elk.
'When you've got a herd of five hundred elk on your property eating ten thousand pounds of grass a day that you have set aside for your cattle in the spring, then it causes a lot of anxiety,' said Gottenborg.
Elk have been grazing on farms and ranches in Colorado for generations. It's been a financial and emotional challenge for landowners like Gottenborg.
'Migrating wildlife like deer, elk, antelope — causes damage to fences. They get tangled up in them or they run through them and break them,' said Gottenborg.
That's where the brand new Elk Migration Agreement comes in.
'What the agreement does is it compensates Dave to leave half of his ranch ungrazed in any given year. And what that does is it leaves a ton of forage behind for the elk and makes it a little bit easier as they are migrating through it. Gives them some of that food and protections they are taking through their migration route,' said Travis Brammer, the director of the Property and Enrollment Research Center
Brammer will be paying the Eagle Rock Ranch an undisclosed amount of funds to allow elk to pasture there in the winter.
'This is paid for entirely by unrestricted donations to PERC. No government money was involved in this,' said Brammer.
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Gottenborg said this first-of-its-kind agreement boils down to preserving the public interest and wildlife interest as well.
'I think it's a great step in the right direction. I want it to kind of serve as another tool in the toolbox for ranchers around the state,' said Gottenborg.
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