David Ledford and Frank Allen own 12,000 acres of reclaimed coal mining ground in Bell County. Bell County-From Spectrum News 1, It so happens that reclaimed surface mines in southeastern Kentucky coal country make excellent elk habitat.It takes in the sixteen counties in southeastern Kentucky. The Kentucky elk zone consists of over 4.1 million acres. Source Elk at the Land Between the Lakes National Recreation Area in Kentucky The Kentucky Elk Recovery Zone The project they undertook was to relocate 50 elk from areas of high population density to an area in the Boon National Forest with underutilized potential elk habitat. It involved Rocky Mountain Elk foundation volunteers assisting the Kentucky Division of Fish and Wildlife Resources. One of the latest projects happened in January of 2022. They have partnered with the Kentucky Fish and Wildlife Service on numerous projects that will benefit elk hunters and people that just enjoy being in the outdoors and seeing wildlife. It is worthy to note that of March of 2022, the Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation has contributed over 2.5 million dollars and countless volunteer hours to research and habitat enhancement within the Kentucky elk recovery zone. One of the organizations that elk and other wildlife in Kentucky can thank for its long-time support is the Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation. With over 14,000 animals, Kentucky has the largest elk herd east of the Rocky Mountains. Knott, Leslie, Letcher, Martin, Perry, and Pike counties all had elk releases.Įlk are thriving there due in part to the state’s mild winters and absence of predators other than black bears and coyotes. Over the next twenty-five years, a total of 1540 elk were relocated into the state. Subsequently, elk capture began in 1997.įrom there, they released the first elk into the southern Appalachians of eastern Kentucky in December of that same year. This was done in order to facilitate a travel corridor between Kentucky’s elk recovery zone and Tennessee’s elk recovery zone.Īfter this lengthy process, they procured donated elk from the four western states of Arizona, New Mexico, Utah, Oregon, and the two midwestern states of Kansas and North Dakota. In 2004, 2 more counties were added to the elk recovery zone to make a total of 16 counties. Historically, there were also elk in western Kentucky, but this area is now too developed to accommodate elk reintroduction without lots of elk/human conflict. This area has a sufficiently large land base, relatively low human population density, and enough public lands to make the project feasible. At the end of this process, they determined that there was a sufficiently feasible elk habitat in a 14-county elk zone in the southeastern counties of the state. They also held many public hearings to gauge the attitude of the citizens of the state. The KDFWR conducted an in-depth habitat feasibility study.
The state had already successfully restored whitetail deer, wild turkey, peregrine falcons, and river otters to some of their original territory within its boundaries. In the late 1900s, an interest in restoring elk to some of their native range within Kentucky began to take hold. The last elk was killed in Kentucky before the civil war. Overhunting habitat loss or modification of their habitat eventually drove them to extinction. However, the arrival of civilization didn’t go well for the eastern elk. These animals thrived in the wilds of Kentucky before the arrival of European settlers. The eastern U.S had the eastern elk sub species “Cervus canadensis canadensis”. Kentucky is part of the elk or wapiti’s Historic eastern range in North America. Elk Were Once Extinct In KentuckyĮlk are native to Kentucky as they are too much of the eastern United States. Again, according to the KDFWR, the state’s large elk population is a direct result of one of the most successful wildlife restoration efforts ever in the eastern United States. That hasn’t always been the case, though. Right now, according to the Kentucky Department of Fish and Wildlife Resources, the elk population within the state is hovering at around 14,407 animals. Kentucky has the largest elk population of any U.S state east of the Mississippi River.