SEQUIM – Public outcry or not, Mayor Walt Schubert is standing by his statements last month that elk from the Dungeness herd could provide much-needed meat for local food banks.
“People can bash me.” the mayor said.
“I’m used to that.”
He still wants to make several points – and look to a kitchen in Iowa.
“The elk are a renewable resource,” he said. “The herd must be kept to a manageable size.
“Using the meat for the hungry is no different than hunting them for sport.”
One elk can supply some 400 pounds of meat, and hunters could share at least a portion of that with agencies such as the Salvation Army soup kitchen, 206 S. Peabody St. in Port Angeles.
“Everybody would win,” Schubert said Thursday.
He is not in favor of exterminating Sequim’s iconic herd.
But continuing to allow hunters to thin it “would be used in conjunction with other solutions such as fencing, and increased habitat lands south of town.”
