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Park Service to remove lawns around Canyon lodges

Visitors to Grand Canyon National Park pose for a picture with a bull elk on one of the South Rim lodge lawns. Submitted Photo

Visitors to Grand Canyon National Park pose for a picture with a bull elk on one of the South Rim lodge lawns. Submitted Photo

GRAND CANYON, Ariz. - This week, weather permitting, the National Park Service will start removing lawns around the El Tovar Hotel and other rim lodges as part of a long-term plan to re-landscape the area with native vegetation consistent with the Grand Canyon Village rim landscape.

The Park Service planted the lawns, made up of Kentucky bluegrass, in the late 1960s and early 1970s when the Kachina and Thunderbird Lodges were constructed.

Kentucky bluegrass is not native to the Grand Canyon and needs a large amount of water to keep up. The park's General Management Plan, Exotic Plant Management Plan and Historic Village Cultural Landscape Report all call for the removal of non-native species, such as Kentucky bluegrass. Once the lawns have been removed, park staff will install native plant landscaping in phases starting in 2014.

In recent years, the exotic Kentucky bluegrass lawns have become attractive for non-native Rocky Mountain elk that use the irrigated lawns as a food and water source, creating a more urgent need to remove the lawns. Rocky Mountain elk were introduced into the Flagstaff and Williams, Ariz. areas between 1913 and 1929 and have migrated to the South Rim in search of food and water.

Park officials said there has been a dramatic increase in the number and concentration of aggressive elk encounters requiring staff intervention, especially around the El Tovar and other rim lodges where large numbers of elk are causing human health and safety concerns.

"Visitors are naturally attracted to elk, and often approach too closely or place themselves directly in the path of elk that are foraging on the lawns," Park Superintendent Dave Uberuaga said. "Elk have become habituated to these lawns, making them dangerous and unpredictable. Although elk can give the impression of being tame, they can quickly become aggressive when protecting their food and water sources, their young, and during the fall rutting season."

Aggravated and aggressive elk are in close proximity to thousands of people visiting the lodges, restaurants, gift shops and viewing areas along the edge of the Canyon rim. By eliminating the lawns and removing unnatural food and water sources, the elk will move away from the rim's edge to other areas of the park where there are less visitors.

The lawns will be removed using a glyphosate-based herbicide, a product found in local stores. Certified applicators will apply the herbicide early in the morning. Park staff will be in the area, and the area will be signed and flagged to keep people and animals off the lawn as it dries, normally for a period of two to four hours.


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