Two Sundays ago, I wrote about the overpopulation of elk in the south unit of Theodore Roosevelt National Park and tried to explain why hunting is not an option. I argued that traditional hunting is illegal in national parks, as well as a violation of longstanding National Park Service core policy, and that even if those two insuperable problems could be overcome, it would create a logistics nightmare to try to get heavy elk carcasses out of the park without four-wheeled vehicles.

The elk would have to be hauled out to the park's limited road system on the backs of horses or hunters - in most cases for many, many miles. Meanwhile, traditional users of the park - those who like to drive the loop road or hike the park's many trails - would be not only disrupted, but endangered by the concentrated hunting activity.

In my previous column, I acknowledged that the idea of letting North Dakota's hunters reduce the population is attractive and it seems like common sense. People who I respect asked, "Why not create some sort of carefully crafted, one-time exception to the no hunting rule, let unpaid, volunteer hunters solve the problem, and then manage the remaining elk so that this doesn't need to be done again? Really, how 'awful' would that be?"

I know good and honest people who will never take the national park's proposed elk management plan seriously because traditional hunting is not one of the options. In fact, they regard the proposed set of options as yet another sign that federal land management types are nincompoops who are totally out of touch with the real world.

In other words, the "common sense" solution is in large part fueled by sagebrush country's contempt for federal ownership of the public lands in America, contempt for federal land management agencies and personnel, for any federal regulation of the nation's natural resources or economic activities.

If you have been following this seemingly interminable debate, you know that the management team at Theodore Roosevelt National Park has been exploring six possible responses to the elk problem.

1. No action.

2. Sharpshooters.

3. A roundup, followed by slaughter-off site. This sounds awful, but it is, after all, standard operating procedure on every cattle ranch in North Dakota. And the meat would be processed and donated to worthy institutions.

4. Transferring live elk to other parks (not necessarily national) around the country.

5. Increased elk hunting outside the boundaries of Theodore Roosevelt National Park.

6. Fertility control. This means injecting some female elk with pregnancy inhibiting chemicals.

Option four (what is called "translocation" in the management jargon) would seem to be the best answer to the burgeoning elk problem. After all, this is what is routinely done with excess bison in TRNP and used to be done with elk. There are other parks around the country that would gladly take our surplus elk. The problem here is chronic wasting disease.

Although no TRNP elk have tested positive for CWD up until now, no elk could be transferred until the herd was systematically tested. The test sample would be huge (about 375 of the current estimated elk population of approximately 1,000), and unfortunately, the CWD test is lethal. If the herd tested negative and it were therefore possible to relocate the park's elk, the management team would probably try to ship out all but 150-200 of the existing herd. That would reduce the herd to a lovely remnant that will not soon become an issue. While the population slowly rises, new management technologies are likely to emerge.

Options one (no action) and six (fertility control) are not really viable. The TRNP elk herd is growing too fast to permit inaction. Although park officials are quick to point out that the park's flora can support the existing population - we are not in a crisis - the elk numbers will soon become a very serious problem if nothing is done. The technology of fertility control is still pretty primitive. TRNP Superintendent Valerie Naylor says that option six was included on the assumption that better fertility control techniques and chemistry will be available in the next 15 years. In the short term, birth control probably cannot solve the problem.

So that leaves roundup and slaughter, reduction by professional sharpshooters, translocation and increased elk hunting outside the park.

When the list was first released, Theodore Roosevelt National Park solicited public comment. Wanting to be a good citizen and pretending I knew something about species and ecosystem management even though I have never studied biology or read a single book on the subject, I formulated my own "common sense" seventh option. It's called the "Just Say No" option. I urged Superintendent Naylor to invite former first lady Nancy Reagan to visit North Dakota with one of those white megaphones to urge the elk of the national park to abstain from sexual activity. You will recall that this was Mrs. Reagan's advice to the young people of America during her husband's presidency (1980-88).

I cannot remember now if Naylor responded that I or my idea was beneath contempt.

The idea of professional sharpshooters is abhorrent to most people - though just why amateur hunters are regarded as more honorable than professional game management marksmen is slightly difficult to understand. Public reaction to sharpshooters would be profoundly negative. That "option" is almost certainly not going to make the cut.

The translocation option will probably be ruled out for the same reason. The public will not like the idea of 375 elk being killed to determine if they have a disease.

I predict that the "preferred option" will turn out to be roundup and the slaughterhouse. It's simple, efficient and cost-effective. The meat will be preserved and donated to charitable institutions.

My own preferred option would be to drive the elk out of the park to neighboring lands, the majority of which are under the jurisdiction of the Little Missouri National Grasslands. Then North Dakota's hunters could cull the herd in the time-honored way. This is, of course, easy for me to say, since I don't own a ranch in the Badlands surrounding TRNP. I'd suggest a compensation payment of $100 per carcass to the rancher on whose acreage the elk was hunted.

Here's the paradox: Any solution to the elk problem is going to require human industrial intervention. That fractures the sweet mythic notion that the national parks are sanctuaries where nature operates by primordial rhythms untainted by human control. There is no "natural" solution to the TRNP elk problem. That means that everyone - including the dedicated park staff - will come away with a sense of disenchantment.

Wordsworth said it best in one of his finest sonnets: "The world is too much with us."

(Clay Jenkinson is the director of the Dakota Institute, a distinguished visiting humanities scholar at BSC and the lead scholar of the Theodore Roosevelt Center at Dickinson State University. You can reach him at Jeffysage@;aol.com.)