DNR drafting plan to manage animals that migrate in from Ky.
West Virginia wildlife officials have completed the first draft of a plan to manage elk in seven of the state's southwestern counties.
West Virginia wildlife officials have completed the first draft of a plan to manage elk in seven of the state's southwestern counties.
Under the plan the Division of Natural Resources would be responsible for protecting and maintaining an elk population, but not for establishing one. Instead, DNR officials plan to allow elk from Kentucky to wander across the border and establish a population on their own.
"It's a 'passive management' approach," said Gary Foster, the agency's supervisor of wildlife management. "We're already getting reports of elk coming across the state line into West Virginia, and we plan to allow that to continue. We plan to keep those animals under their current protected status until such time as population levels get high enough to allow limited hunting."
Kentucky, Tennessee and Pennsylvania reestablished elk by transplanting animals captured in other states. Paul Johansen, the DNR's assistant wildlife chief, said West Virginia "has no plans" to follow that trend and undertake a stocking program.
"Our approach is to manage elk in a way they've never been managed before in the East," he added. "Our approach is to not stock any animals, but to manage the gift the Commonwealth of Kentucky has bestowed upon us."
An aggressive stocking program boosted eastern Kentucky's elk population from zero in 1996 to an estimated 10,000 animals today. As the Kentucky herd matured, its range expanded. A few of those Bluegrass State elk have been spotted on the West Virginia side of the Tug Fork and Big Sandy rivers. DNR officials plan to allow those migrants to stay, and to protect them from being hunted until the population reaches a density of one animal for every three square miles.
"Basically, we would need a population of about 950 elk before we would consider a hunt," Foster said. "We frankly don't know how many elk we have right now, but we assume that the population is very low. Those animals will eventually reproduce and slowly expand their ranges, but having enough to support a hunt will be a long, long, long-term process."
Four entire counties, and parts of three others, would form the state's Elk Management Area - Logan, Mingo, McDowell, Wyoming, southern Wayne, southern Lincoln and southern Boone. The proposed area would encompass 2,845 square miles.
"We keyed in on that area because there's a good amount of mountaintop-removal mining taking place there, and reclaimed mine lands have the sort of open habitat elk seem to thrive in," Foster said. "The reason we only included [the southern] portions of Wayne, Lincoln and Boone counties is because the northern ends of those counties have some agricultural land, and we don't want to create potential crop-depredation problems."
West Virginia wildlife officials have completed the first draft of a plan to manage elk in seven of the state's southwestern counties.
Under the plan the Division of Natural Resources would be responsible for protecting and maintaining an elk population, but not for establishing one. Instead, DNR officials plan to allow elk from Kentucky to wander across the border and establish a population on their own.
"It's a 'passive management' approach," said Gary Foster, the agency's supervisor of wildlife management. "We're already getting reports of elk coming across the state line into West Virginia, and we plan to allow that to continue. We plan to keep those animals under their current protected status until such time as population levels get high enough to allow limited hunting."
Kentucky, Tennessee and Pennsylvania reestablished elk by transplanting animals captured in other states. Paul Johansen, the DNR's assistant wildlife chief, said West Virginia "has no plans" to follow that trend and undertake a stocking program.
"Our approach is to manage elk in a way they've never been managed before in the East," he added. "Our approach is to not stock any animals, but to manage the gift the Commonwealth of Kentucky has bestowed upon us."
An aggressive stocking program boosted eastern Kentucky's elk population from zero in 1996 to an estimated 10,000 animals today. As the Kentucky herd matured, its range expanded. A few of those Bluegrass State elk have been spotted on the West Virginia side of the Tug Fork and Big Sandy rivers. DNR officials plan to allow those migrants to stay, and to protect them from being hunted until the population reaches a density of one animal for every three square miles.
"Basically, we would need a population of about 950 elk before we would consider a hunt," Foster said. "We frankly don't know how many elk we have right now, but we assume that the population is very low. Those animals will eventually reproduce and slowly expand their ranges, but having enough to support a hunt will be a long, long, long-term process."
Four entire counties, and parts of three others, would form the state's Elk Management Area - Logan, Mingo, McDowell, Wyoming, southern Wayne, southern Lincoln and southern Boone. The proposed area would encompass 2,845 square miles.
"We keyed in on that area because there's a good amount of mountaintop-removal mining taking place there, and reclaimed mine lands have the sort of open habitat elk seem to thrive in," Foster said. "The reason we only included [the southern] portions of Wayne, Lincoln and Boone counties is because the northern ends of those counties have some agricultural land, and we don't want to create potential crop-depredation problems."
Under regulations proposed in the plan, any elk that wandered out of the designated area would be fair game during the deer season for any licensed hunter.
"Virginia had a similar regulation when they first started having elk migrate across the Kentucky border. We're very serious about not allowing elk to become established anywhere outside the Elk Management Area. [Allowing elk to be harvested during the deer season] would allow us to very efficiently keep the herd where it belongs," Foster said.
One of the more daunting tasks outlined in the draft plan will involve finding out approximately how many elk actually exist in West Virginia.
"We plan to do conduct bugling counts, record elk sightings by hunters and biologists, and maybe even put out salt blocks to see if potential elk range is being occupied," Johansen said.
DNR officials expect at least some criticism for the go-slow approach outlined in the management plan. A growing number of sportsmen - mainly those who have hunted elk in Kentucky and in the Rocky Mountain states - are lobbying for a state-sanctioned stocking program.
Johansen said stocking isn't an option, mainly because DNR officials won't jeopardize southern West Virginia's renowned trophy deer-hunting resource by introducing elk - a species known to carry chronic wasting disease.
"Until a live-animal test for CWD becomes operational, we will not see West Virginia move elk or any other [similar animal] into the state for restoration purposes," he said. "We simply can't take the risk."
No formal public-comment process has been put into place for the draft plan, but Johansen said it would "probably be posted on [the DNR] website sometime between late summer and early fall, with the idea of having a document implemented and in place by mid-fall."
Reach John McCoy at johnmc...@wvgazette.com or 304-348-1231.
