Late this week, livestock trailers will rumble their way across mountain roads from Kentucky, coming to a halt in a field that was once a coal mine in the War Fork area of Buchanan County.
And as the cargo is carefully unloaded, a chapter in the book of Virginia’s elk restoration will end.
Some 45 elk have been rounded up in nearby Kentucky, and been under quarantine under a veterinarian’s watchful eye since early February, said Allen Boynton, a regional wildlife manager for the Virginia Department of Game and Inland Fisheries, the state agency overseeing the restoration efforts.
This year’s group of elk represents the third and largest herd of elk brought over, and the herd will join the 25 to 30 elk that are already living at the site, which is on private property. There are 14 bulls and 31 cows in this herd, Boynton said, adding that 16 of the cows are pregnant.
Virginia was home to native wild elk more than 150 years ago. Larger than white-tailed deer, elk eat coarse vegetation and are sought-after game. The state has been trying to restore elk populations to the state for several years, with a goal of getting the herd up to about 400 head before permitting restricted hunting.
The elk have access to several thousand acres, including some public land owned by the county, but have been staying relatively near the drop-off site, Boynton said. All the elk that are brought over wear tracking collars.
Leon Boyd is a member of the Southwest Virginia Coalfields chapter of the Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation, a group that has been dedicated to restoration efforts. He said several hundred people are expected to go see the elk early Friday morning in the corral where the elk are held for a week or so before being released into the wild.
“Always when we get this close to getting them, we get excited,” he said. “Now that the weather has been better, folks want to get out and look for shed antlers, and we have noticed that counties want to bring kids from the school system over to see them. It’s always exciting to see other counties getting involved.”
He has been keeping an eye on the elk that are already in the county, through trips to the site and via trail cams, which he has set up across the property near the holding corral. He said that there’s a potential for another 20 or so elk to calve this year, in addition to the 16 expected to be born out of the Kentucky group this spring.
This year, the elk are being brought over earlier in the year, largely thanks to a speedier health check, Boynton said.
“It benefits the elk,” he said. “It means we’re moving them while it’s cooler and before they start calving.”
Boynton said interest in the elk has grown, although there likely hasn’t been a great shift of opinion in bringing elk back to Southwest Virginia. The move was supported by hunters, while farmers and others were concerned about potential damage the elk could do to farmland, fences and vehicles.
“These elk haven’t really caused a lot of damage, nor have they really left that release area,” Boynton said. “People have found out how they act — mostly people around the release site or who have an avid interest in elk.”
He said now, the department goes into management mode while the population increases.
“What we’re going to do now is manage them,” he said. “One way to do that is make elk meadows, where we actively plant forage that’s attractive to them and then they’ll tend to stay in that area … Our management of elk will be more focused on habitat.”
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