Great Smoky Mountains National Park needs more volunteers for the Elk Bugle Corp Program.

If you love the Great Smoky Mountains national park, wild animals, history and working with people this an opportunity you just can't pass up.

You will only be paid in sunsets, sunrises and lots of smiles in the beautiful Cataloochee valley teaching people about and help protect our valuable herd of North American Elk in the Smokies.

If you become a volunteer Elk Bugle Corp member, you will have the opportunity to work alongside more than 80 other volunteers who work in the valley who also love nature and the Great Smoky Mountains national park.

To be an Elk Bugle Corp Volunteer you must be able to work at least 2 scheduled 4-hour shifts a month from May until November and you should enjoy working around people.

Your job will be to promote safe and ethical wild life viewing, educate park visitors about the elk restoration program in the Great Smoky Mountains national park and their behavior, and help with traffic management in the busy seasons especially in the rut season from late September through November.

You should also enjoy being outdoors and various weather conditions and have patience when dealing with the public. The rewards are tremendous when you are a volunteer Elk Bugle Corp member knowing that you are helping educate people about the park, its inhabitants, its colorful history and protecting the park.

Just the simple act of a park volunteer securing garbage pail lids and keeping bear out of the trash containers and getting acclimated to human food, protect our beloved black bear and park visitors from having too close and encounter with a black bear.

The park will train all volunteers with a full day of training that you must attend on either the last week in April or the first week in May.

If you are interested in joining the ranks of the Elk Bugle Corp in the Great Smoky Mountains national park RSVP to Ranger Mark LaShell at mark_lashell@nps.gov (E-mail is preferred) or call (828)269-3161. Once signed up you can attend one of 2 informational meetings and new volunteer orientation sessions that will take place in the Cataloochee Valley at the ranger station on April 15 and 17, from 1 pm to 5 pm.

If you would like to help the Elk Bugle Corp Volunteer program and cannot join the program, you can contribute to the programs enormous success by supporting the Elk Bugle Corp program with a financial contribution of any size to the Bull Elk 21 Memorial Fund set through Friends of the Smokies.

Last year members of the Elk Bugle Corp who had contact with more than 85,000 visitors volunteered more than 7,000 hours. Won't you come join us and support us?

Alleged Poacher of Bull Elk 21 in Great Smoky Mountains National Park charged, but is it enough?

We waited for months for the alleged elk poacher 35 year old Bruce Wayne Cromer Jr. of Stovall North Carolina to be charged, and to the US Attorney's Office for the Western District of North Carolina has finaly filed charges.

Bull Elk #21 was shot and killed on November 13, 2009 in the Great Smoky Mountains National Parks Cataloochee Valley in a field across from the Palmer house. Allegedly, Bruce Wayne Cromer Jr. fired at least 3 shots from his Browning .270 caliber rifle killing bull elk 21 and then fled the crime scene in his blue 2002 Chevy Avalanche truck.

If convicted of this cowardly crime against a helpless animal, Bruce Wayne Cromer Jr. of Stovall North Carolina can be made to forfeit both his vehicle and the firearm, serve as much as 6 months in jail and face fines listed in the charges as a whopping $500.

National park regulations call for fines as much as $5,000 so I am hoping that the US Attorney's office made a typographical error in their press release of the charges being filed against Bruce Wayne Cromer Jr. of Stovall North Carolina and they are not settling for such a low figure. This is certainly not the way to discourage other poachers.

Civil charges may also be pending to attempt to collect some of the expenses invested in Bull Elk #21 by donations from individuals and organizations such as Friends of the Smokies and the Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation.

Poaching a national park treasure such as bull elk #21 is a crime against all the people who owned this majestic creature the citizens of the United States.

$500 fine? That's an outrage as far as I am concerned.

A memorial fund has been set up by Friends of the Smokies to raise money to help properly equip the more than 80 unpaid park volunteers in the Elk Bugle Corp who generously give their time: 16,472 hours in the past 3 years!

The Elk Bugle Corp teaches visitors about the elk restoration project, other park inhabitants and ongoing projects, the history of the Cataloochee area, promotes responsible wildlife viewing, and helps with traffic management which is rut season is a handful.

The presence of members of the Elk Bugle Corp acting as the eyes and ears of the park along with some very dedicated visitors, has been instrumental in protecting our beloved elk from undue human contact and poaching.

Help the Elk Bugle Corp and help us keep this from happening again.

To Donate Click Here

Default Donation is $10 but you can increase or decrease the amount

Friends of Great Smoky Mountains National Park is an independent 501(c)(3) non-profit organization. All donations are tax-deductible as allowable by law.

Related Elk in the GSMNP Stories

• Alleged Poacher of Bull Elk 21 in Great Smoky Mountains National Park charged, but is it enough?
• Memorial Fund For Slain Bull Elk #21 to Support the Elk Bugle Corps Volunteer Program
• Great Smoky Mountains National Park Elk Poaching Suspect Confesses and Arrest will be made
• Elk poaching takes place in Cataloochee Valley in the Great Smoky Mountains national park.
• Elk Reintroduction in Great Smoky Mountains National Park
• Great Smoky Mountains National Park needs more Volunteers for Elk Bugle Corp Program

Elk poaching takes place in Cataloochee Valley in the Great Smoky Mountains national park.

Those of you who follow me on Twitter know how near and dear the Elk in the Great Smoky Mountains national park are to me and of course the tens of thousands of other park visitors a year who come to the Cataloochee Valley just to see our elk.

Unfortunately this morning someone well within the national park boundaries in the Cataloochee Valley decided to poach one of our beloved Elk which was one of the first elk released in the park, 13 year old Bull #21 pictured above.

This person who committed this cowardly act not only took this animals life away but took from all of us a magnificent beast. Elk are now able to roam the Great Smoky Mountains which have not heard the bugle of a wild elk for more than 100 years due to over hunting and habitat destruction because of a great investment and time and money from private sources given graciously to the park.

For those of us who love the Great Smoky Mountains national park the elk have become intimately intertwined with this beautiful place since their experiment introduction in 2001 and the herd has grown from 52 head to an estimated 105. The long term prospects for this experimental reintroduction of elk in the Smokies looks fantastic.

Poaching of natural and cultural artifacts is a serious problem in all of our national parks. Poaching in the Great Smoky Mountains national park and the adjoining Blue Ridge Parkway is most commonly to plants such as ramps, ginseng, and wildflowers such as lady slippers as well as wildlife most commonly black bear and deer.

More than 80 park volunteers who love the elk and I work in the Cataloochee Valley of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park in a program called the Elk Bugle Corp offering educational information to visitors about the elk and the GSMNP, help with traffic management and work to maintain a safe distance between visitors and our beloved elk and black bear.

So that some good use comes out of this cowardly crime, it would be great if this animal was mounted for display in the new Oconaluftee visitor center being built or the Sugarlands visitor center museum rather than just dump the animal's body after the forensic evidence is gathered to prosecute this criminal. At least people can then see up close one of these magnificent animals we have so much invested in.

I urge anyone who has any information about this or any wildlife crime in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park to call the GSMNP Main Number at park headquarters (865)436-1200.

Related Elk in the GSMNP Stories

• Alleged Poacher of Bull Elk 21 in Great Smoky Mountains National Park charged, but is it enough?
• Memorial Fund For Slain Bull Elk #21 to Support the Elk Bugle Corps Volunteer Program
• Great Smoky Mountains National Park Elk Poaching Suspect Confesses and Arrest will be made
• Elk poaching takes place in Cataloochee Valley in the Great Smoky Mountains national park.
• Elk Reintroduction in Great Smoky Mountains National Park
• Great Smoky Mountains National Park needs more Volunteers for Elk Bugle Corp Program