| 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.
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