RJA #2: Areas of Academic Interest

These are some of the topics that I will choose from:

-Rocky Mountain Wildlife( management)

-WW2

-100 Years War

-Firearms

-Vietnam War


I ended up choosing the Rocky Mountain National Park Wildlife Management. I chose this because I love the environment and the outdoors. If we were to lose any of the species in the area the whole system would be effected. My main focus would be on the elk and the impact that they have on the environment. In case you didn't know they are way overpopulated and have nearly taken over the park.

I know quite a bit about the elk and the problem since I have been paying a lot of attention over the last year. Like I said in the first paragraph the elk population is getting out of control and something needs to be done right away if we want to save the ecosystem in the park. As the elk numbers get bigger they eat more and push smaller animals, like deer, out of the picture. There are currently no animals in the park, except humans, that can kill elk on a regular basis and the only way we are killing them is with our cars. There are currently efforts to level out the population but most of the ideas are being heavily debated and meeting stiff resistance from the locals and people who don't want to see the park's elk get killed. However, now that it is legal to carry firearms in a national park they might start shooting the elk and maybe we can get the population down to a safer level.

I don't know a lot of the political side of the whole ordeal and hope to find some more information about it. I would also like to find some interviews with people from the area of Estes Park and Granby to see what they think of it. It would also be nice to see what the federal government has to say about it or even if they have much of a say. I'm not sure who is calling most of the shots if it's the feds of the state but something has to be done.