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Elk Returned to Great Smoky Mountains National Park.

The Great Smokey Mountains National Park now has 26 elk that have been placed in holding pens, and will soon be released into the wild by the U. S. National Park Service. The elk once thrived in the southern Appalachians but were eliminated from the area by over-hunting and loss of habitat in the mid 1800s.

The Great Smoky Mountains Park Service is reintroducing this majestic native animal into the Smokey mountains as a pilot program. The native otter has also been recently reintroduced to the southern Appalachians, and the Bald Eagle has staged a come back since becoming nearly extinct in the early 1970s.

The park service brought twenty-six elk to the Cataloochee area and has placed them in a holding pen for two months to give them an opportunity of acclimate to the area. The elk are coming from a disease-free herd in Kentucky that has been monitored for disease for several years.

Mature bull average 800-1,100 pounds and stand 5" to 5'6" at the shoulder when they reach seven to eight years of age. Bulls compete for dominance during the rutting season through bugling, sparring and chasing would-be competing bulls away. The rutting season lasts from late August to late October. The Bugling of elk bulls is consider by many outdoor enthusiasts to be one of the most unique sounds made by wild animals.

Mature cows average 550 to 600 hundred pounds, and stand four to five feet at the shoulder. Only the bulls grow antlers.

The park service hopes to demonstrate that the elk will be able to reestablish themselves in the Southern Appalachian Mountains. Over the next three years, the park service will bring twenty-five elk each year to the Great Smoky Mountains National Park for release, for a total of seventy-five elk.

The elk will be released each year in the early spring when the food supply is becoming available, and before the new elk caves are born. Biologists believe this will give the elk the best chance of surviving and reestablishing themselves in the WNC area.

According to Bill Foxworth, Ph.D., "The reproductive physiology of the elk has been substantially influenced by their need to deliver offspring at a time that maximizes calf survival by avoiding seasonally inclement weather while providing adequate quantities of good forage. For elk in the northern hemisphere, this means that they typically conceive in late summer to autumn and that calving begins in late May to early June. If calves are born too late in the season (some calves may be born as late as November), the mother may not have enough good forage to maintain adequate lactation, or the offspring may not be able to attain adequate size and condition to endure a harsh winter."

Calves are spotted when born and develop their brown coats within six months. Through natural instincts, the cow will watch her calf from a short distance, drawing near when it is threatened by predators.

The elk will be equipped with radio collars to allow the biologist to track their migration and to monitor their eating habits. The information gathered from these seventy-five elk will hopefully give the park service the data necessary to support a full-scale reintroduction of elk.

Needless to say, the newly introduced elk will be given protected status by the park service, and hunting of the elk by sportsmen will be illegal. The park service plans to increase their patrols of the areas inhabited by the elk to try to prevent poaching.

With the return of the elk, otter and bald eagle, the Smoky Mountains are beginning to play host to some old natives that have not been seen in these parts for quite sometime.