ELK BEING ADDED TO WV WILDLIFE - Elk Disappeared In Late 1800s, Maybe

(09/25/2015)
West Virginia wildlife officials have a two places to put elk they plan to import, likely from Kentucky that has a herd estimated at 10,000.

Division of Natural Resources Director Bob Fala announced the creation of two wildlife management areas in Logan and McDowell counties.

In addition to providing habitat for stocked elk, the areas will provide public access for people who wish to view the animals and, ultimately, to hunt them.

Unlike deer, elk are herd animals that tend to wander far and wide. Biologists cautioned that each herd, when introduced, would require several thousand acres of unbroken habitat.

Historically, elk were common inhabitants across North America and populated the majority of the lower 48 states.

West Virginia's Eastern Elk provided an important source for food, shelter and clothing for American Indians and the early European settlers.

Evidence of elk and their distribution throughout the state is illustrated by the widespread use of the word "elk" in place names, such as Elk River, Elk Fork Lake, Elkview and Elk Creek.

But the largest elk populations occurred in the West Virginia's high mountain regions.

Elk numbers declined in West Virginia, as well as in the eastern United States, throughout the 1800s as the area was exploited and became home to European settlers.

The DNR says the last known occurrences in the Mountain State were reported from the headwaters of the Tygart Valley and Greenbrier rivers around 1875.

However, a newspaper account says that a baby elk was captured in the Bear Fork wilderness in 1914.

The account says a party of hunters composed of Mark Farnsworth and Perry Cox, of Auburn, and Army Hardman, of Harrisville, passed through Glenville a few days ago with a subject of the animal kingdom now unknown in a wild state in West Virginia.

"The party, including the wives of the members, was returning home from an eight-month camping trip on the waters of Bear Fork and Steer Creek."

"They had a live baby elk -- perhaps the last to be captured in this state -- which was the chief object of attention among a whole menagerie of living denizens which had been captured."

Elk should thrive in West Virginia, likely the most forested state in the USA.