Replacement in Their Former Range
Not long after the last elk was killed in Pennsylvania, federal officials, worried about mushrooming elk herds in and around Yellowstone National Park, offered the animals to anyone willing to take them. The recently formed Pennsylvania Game Commission took Yellowstone officials up on their offer, and launched a program to reintroduce elk to Pennsylvania. Starting in 1913 and ending in 1926, the Commission released 177 elk in 10 counties, including 50 animals from Yellowstone. Currently, Pennsylvania's elk herd numbers more than 800 and their range covers approximately 800 square miles.
In 1990, feasibility studies were conducted to determine if wild, free-ranging elk still had a place in some of their former eastern haunts. Once this was complete, healthy source herds of Rocky Mountain Elk from Arizona, Kansas, New Mexico, North Dakota, Oregon, Utah and Alberta’s Elk Island National Park were used to introduce elk back into the former Eastern Elk range.
Successful elk populations have been now been introduced in Arkansas (1991), Wisconsin (1995), Ontario (2001), Kentucky, Tennessee and Great Smoky Mountains National Park in 2002, the area known as Northern Michigan, and in 2012 Virginia. In addition, feasibility studies have also been completed in Illinois, West Virginia and New York (although these have not yet resulted in any elk restorations).
Read more about this topic: Eastern Elk
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