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Biologist, elk remembered at brief exhibit I never met Melvin. Nor did I ever meet the late Les Eberhardt, a Pacific Northwest National Laboratory wildlife biologist. However, I plan to remedy those oversights by visiting an exhibit that runs from Feb. 4-27 at Washington State University at Tri-Cities in Richland. PNNL scientists will kick off the event with an informational open house from 7 to 8:30 p.m. Wednesday through Friday. The monthlong exhibit is dedicated to Eberhardt, who died in a plane crash on June 3,1992, while conducting wildlife research, and to one of his favorite subjects - a Rocky Mountain bull elk named Melvin. The huge elk died on the Arid Lands Ecology Reserve of natural causes in 1996. He was 17 1/2 years old. A 6-year-old bull elk in hunted populations is considerd old. The display - "A Chronicle of Elk in the Columbia Basin: The Rattlesnake Hills Herd" - will feature several of Melvin's huge shed antlers and a full head mount of Melvin with his massive rack, which at 15 years of age weighed more than 30 pounds and measured 53 inches in length. It will be on view in the Consolidated Information Center at WSU Tri-Cities. The display also will feature photos and a narrative of Melvin's life compiled by Eberhardt and other scientists. Melvin and Eberhardt's close partnership dated to 1978 when Melvin was born on the ALE site. But the story actually began several years earlier in 1972 when PNNL scientists first sighted elk on Department of Energy lands. Biologists speculate the elk wandered onto the reserve from the Cascade Mountains. Under Eberhardt's leadership, scientists began studying the herd for more than 10 years. During those years, Melvin, along with several other elk, were collared with radio transmitters so scientists could monitor their behavior, habitat use, movements and physiological responses to the collars. Melvin, who was first known as No. 204, was radio collared for the first time in 1984. With the ability to track Melvin's movements, scientists soon discovered he was no ordinary bull. In 1984, Melvin was a 6-year-old 6-point and one of seven adult bulls in a herd of 55 animals having free range over miles of shrub-steppe, a habitat ideally suited for elk, which at one time roamed the vast American Plains. Scientists noted at the time that Melvin's third tines, or branches of the main antlers, already were exceptionally long for Rocky Mountain elk and that he carried a small crown tine on both antlers. By 1990, Eberhardt recorded that Melvin possessed antlers that none of the other 21 adult bulls in the Rattlesnake Hills herd could match, elevating him to the status of herd patriarch. Five years earlier, hunting on private lands near ALE was permitted by the state, and several adult bulls were harvested. But Melvin never ventured off the federal "safe" lands. Melvin was tranquilized in 1991 by researchers using helicopters and was fitted with his final radio collar. Eberhardt also decided to attach small radio transmitters to each of Melvin's huge antlers so they could be found in the spring. During the fitting, biologists estimated Melvin's weight at 1,100 pounds. His main beams both exceeded 52 inches and his third tines were between 23 and 26 inches long. PNNL's elk research program also turned up some other interesting facts about the elk living on ALE's nearly pristine environment. During the 1990s, the Rattlesnake Hills herd grew at an annual rate of about 28 percent, more than doubling every four years. Moreover, it had long been held that after age 10, a bull's antlers decreased in size. However, data collected on Melvin showed his antlers continued to grow until he was 15 years old. In 1993, at the age of 15, Melvin sported his most impressive rack, 11 points on the left antler and 8 points on the right. Also, among a herd of 223 animals, Melvin was one of 33 bulls that had survived eight years of off-site hunting. Melvin's long life and the overall success of the Rattlesnake Hills herd, biologists noted, was due in large measure to abundant forage with no competition from domestic livestock, open access to water, relatively mild winters and no public hunting. During the 1990s, the Rattlesnake Hills herd numbered close to 800 head. Today, about 500 elk roam ALE. By 1995, Melvin had become a solitary elk, spending his waning days wandering a gentle 1,400-foot plateau near a small spring. His antlers were only 39 inches long and he did not even try to remove the velvet from his antlers that fall, biologists reported. The following spring, Melvin's bones were found scattered about by ravens and coyotes, not far from where his shed antlers from the previous year were found. Scientists don't know exactly why Melvin died, but a severe cold that winter most likely did in the veteran wapiti. Eberhardt never lived to see his old friend's demise, but as a respected elk researcher, an enthusiastic sportsman and a member of the Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation, there's no doubt he would have been proud of the work that has left us with a well-documented legacy of Melvin and the Rattlesnake Hills elk herd. In 1993, a year after Eberhardt's untimely death, Congress renamed the 120-square-mile area between Rattlesnake Mountain and Highway 240 the Fitzner-Eberhardt Arid Lands Ecology Reserve in honor of Eberhardt and Richard Fitzner, who died along with Eberhardt that spring day doing what they loved - studying wildlife. Today, ALE is part of the Hanford Reach National Monument, managed by the Fish and Wildlife Service. For more information on the Rattlesnake Hills elk herd exhibit, including hours and directions, call 372-6083. |
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