The advisory committee to Boulder County Parks and Open Space split down the middle on Thursday night in voting on a controversial proposal to allow a limited hunting season on Rabbit Mountain Open Space to manage a large elk herd that has settled there.

Nevertheless, the proposal will advance to Boulder County commissioners for a public hearing on June 20 with a staff recommendation that it be adopted for implementation later this year.

"With a 3-3 split, there's really no modification we plan to do on the plan at this time — no major modification, I should say," said Therese Glowacki, resource management division manager for Boulder County Parks and Open Space.

A modification Glowacki mentioned is something that would not impact implementation of a limited hunting season on the 5,000-acre property northeast of Lyons, should county commissioners approve it.

"One thing that was talked about a lot was that many of the POSAC (Parks and Open Space Advisory Committee) members want something to happen quickly, to get the elk numbers down — that came from both the people who voted for and against it, and one of the discussions was, in the long run, what can we do to keep this from happening again?" Glowacki said.

"So we will be looking at research opportunities into fertility control of wild, free-ranging elk."

But although fertility control is an option hunting opponents would like to see employed at Rabbit Mountain Open Space now, in lieu of hunting, Glowacki said that is not the staff's preference, in part because the Environmental Protection Agency has not yet approved the most likely chemicals that would be used in anything other than research settings.

"The majority of the board did not think that fertility control is an appropriate step now," Glowacki said.

"But once we get the numbers under control, perhaps some fertility control could maintain those numbers where we want them. That's something we might well discuss, and add more detail on, in our plan."

County wildlife experts and biologists are concerned about the rapid growth of an elk herd on the Rabbit Mountain Open Space. They say the number of elk there — estimated to be around 30 in the mid-2000s — had ballooned to more than 350 by last year.

Having learned to avoid nearby private land where hunting is permitted, and no longer migrating to a higher elevation summer range, the elk have wreaked havoc on the vegetation at Rabbit Mountain, "browsing, grazing and trampling, even down to mineral soil in elk bedding areas," according to a draft of the management plan under consideration.

The county's Parks and Open Space staff will now ask commissioners to consider a limited hunting season there, to run Mondays through Wednesdays, starting after Labor Day and ending Dec. 15 but extending to Jan. 31 outside of eagle closures. The area would be closed to other members of the public on those days.

The goal of the plan is to reestablish seasonal migration patterns so that the elk no longer concentrate year-round on Rabbit Mountain, and to maintain a herd of about 30 to 70 elk there — the precise number depending on the success of efforts to reestablish their seasonal migration.

Sugarloaf resident Marcia Barber is one vocal opponent of the plan. She attended Thursday night's meeting.

"It was very devastating, I think for their plan, and I certainly understand why," she said of the split vote.

"Even the people that voted for it wanted changes in the plan," Barber said. "They wanted to adopt other approaches as well, and they weren't sure about the hunting.

"I think it was a very productive meeting. There were a lot of new ideas posed that I think people were very interested in having adopted, instead of the hunting."

Charlie Brennan: 303-473-1327, brennanc@dailycamera.com or twitter.com/chasbrennan

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