It's fall. There's a crispness in the air, trees are painting the landscape with their colorful leaves, elk are in the rut. And in some national parks, hunters are being dispatched to tamp down those elk populations. Is that the right way to approach wildlife management in the National Park System?

A federal proposal to add about 12,000 acres of historic ranchland in and near Theodore Roosevelt National Park to the National Register of Historic Places has many North Dakotans concerned about possible land-use constraints.

On a recent Monday, as I was hiking near treeline in a quiet part of Rocky Mountain National Park, I rounded a corner to see a gigantic bull elk. He hadn’t seen me, but ran down the open hillside to a creek, where he pawed at the water and thrashed at it with his antlers, sending up silver curves of droplets and a splashing sound through the small valley. He then slowed to drink.

A U.S. senator, unhappy with progress Theodore Roosevelt National Park officials are making on reducing the park's elk herd, is trying to legislate a hunt in the park to get the job done.