Wasting disease threatens growing Pa. elk population
To 17th-century Colonists, the big antlered creatures of the New World looked like European moose, or “elch.” Indigenous people called them “wapiti,” referring to the animal’s big white behind.
Pennsylvania’s native elk herd occupied densely forested mountains until clear-cut foresting and overhunting drove them to regional extinction in the 1860s. Today, the state’s growing free-range elk are a testament to modern conservation science that is being threatened by an incurable disease and their own population successes.
Chronic wasting disease, which is killing deer and elk across much of the United States, is nearing the elk’s Pennsylvania range. And as the range expands, wildlife managers are trying to limit the elk’s impact on agriculture and backyard gardens.
The Pennsylvania Game Commission was formed in the 1860s essentially to revive the white-tailed deer, another native mammal that was virtually eliminated by the saw and bullet. In 1913, drawing on what they had learned from repopulating deer, the Game Commission paid the state of Wyoming about $30 a head for 50 elk, herded them into boxcars near Yellowstone National Park and hauled them some 2,000 miles to their new home in Pennsylvania. Half were unloaded in Clinton County and the rest in Clearfield County — locations that were once the elk’s natural habitat. The majestic animals left the train, stepped into their new surroundings and promptly wandered far away.
“This kind of becomes political, and instead of putting elk where they belong, they put them where they thought was best and to satisfy some people who were interested in seeing elk in their area,” said Joe Kosack, an editor with the Game Commission. “So we end up putting elk in places they probably should have never been.”
Through the 1920s, the Game Commission brought in a total of about 170 elk and placed most in the central region, from as far north as Potter County to Huntingdon County in the south. But the project didn’t work. Only a few dozen of the transplanted elk’s prodigy were alive by the mid-20th century, mostly in and around Elk and Cameron counties.
“It’s pretty rugged country,” Mr. Kosack said. “If an elk got wise to being stalked, it could learn to elude hunters pretty quickly in country like that. They managed to make a stand up there, so that’s why we have elk where they are now.”
A census conducted by Penn State University put the commonwealth’s elk population at approximately 65 in 1971. The count dropped into the 30s by the middle of the 1970s, likely due to a parasitic brain worm. But with improved habitat management and protection, the use of tracking collars to better understand movement patterns and the participation of several organizations including the Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation, the population has grown to a current estimated size of 1,000 to 1,200.
They range through parts of Elk, Cameron, Clinton, Clearfield and Potter counties. On occasion some stray from that region, including a bull that ventured into Cambria County in 2010.
Chronic wasting disease, always fatal to deer, elk and moose, has been in Pennsylvania since 2012 and is expanding nearer to the elk’s range. The contagious neurological condition causes a degeneration of the brain resulting in emaciation, abnormal behavior and loss of bodily functions. It cannot be contracted by humans but could be the biggest potential threat to the Pennsylvania elk herd.
CWD is transmitted through body fluids and environmental contamination of soil, food or water. There are already three Disease Management Areas in Pennsylvania, including one that covers all of Bedford County, along with most of Cambria and Somerset and part of Westmoreland.
Jeremy Banfield, the Game Commission’s chief elk biologist, said no cases have been reported yet in the Pennsylvania elk herd. But he believes it is coming.
“The pessimistic but realistic thing to say here is that elk will get CWD eventually,” he said. “When I first started here in 2013, I was kind of hoping that it wouldn’t happen in my career. But now I do not think that. It will definitely happen in my career.”
Meanwhile, elk ecotourism has become an economic generator in the region. During the fall rut, it is not uncommon for 1,000 vehicles at a time to be parked at the Elk Country Visitor Center and nearby overlooks. Tourism tops 200,000 visitors per year.
The elk population is managed through regulated hunting. More than 30,000 hunters enter Pennsylvania’s annual elk lottery. In 2019, only 142 tags were given out for the three seasons — a new archery-only hunt (five antlered tags, 10 antlerless), the general season (27 antlered, 71 antlerless) and late season (29 antlerless). The hunts are used to control the herd’s size and range, create interest in the elk and generate revenue for the Game Commission. The drawing for this year’s elk lottery was livestreamed Aug. 15.
Mr. Banfield said it is a “very coveted hunt” with applications coming in from across the nation.
“It’s our best tool, our most efficient tool, for balancing populations with habitat and also with the social acceptance,” Mr. Banfield said. “There’s what habitat is available to a population — that is one balancing act. And there’s a more important balancing act of how many elk are people going to tolerate. So the hunting seasons are our best tools to manipulate the population and change it as much as we can based on those two things. It also provides a tremendous source of a recreational opportunity.”
Its popularity has given rise to a small guided hunt businesses in the state’s northern tier. Jeff Colwell, owner of Hicks Run Outfitters in Elk County, has been guiding tag recipients since the elk hunt started in 2001.
“There are about five outfitters in the state,” said Mr. Colwell, a retired state conservation officer. “There are probably 40 guides that work for five outfitters. I try to run my outfitter business to give you a quality hunt overall — good place to stay, good camaraderie, good food plus experienced guides that take you out on a one-on-one hunt.”
The hunt, limited to designated zones, is by far the most well-known aspect of the state’s elk management practices. But behind the scenes, scientific research is being done to better understand the animals.
Two major projects were scheduled to begin in 2020. One involves pregnancy rates. Information retrieved during the 2013-18 general hunts showed a 55% pregnancy rate, which Mr. Banfield called low. But the rate from elk examined later in the winters of 2018 and 2019 showed a rate of 88%.
“We have evidence of asynchronous breeding, which basically means that animals are being bred later than they should be, based on the natural cycle,” Mr. Banfield said.
Beginning in January 2020, the Game Commission used vaginal implant transmitters that signal an animal’s collar to send a text message when a birth occurs. The newborns are found and collared quickly as part of a three-year study.
“What that says is, it’s good that we’re reaching that almost 90% benchmark,” Mr. Banfield said. “What’s bad about it is that almost 40% of them are being bred late in the year.”
Another project involves planting half-acre strips of 12 different forage foods, such as red clover, white clover, orchardgrass and fescue grass, to see what the elk prefer to eat and why.
“The hope is that, of the 12, maybe three to five will float to the top,” Mr. Banfield said.
He worries about what will happen when chronic wasting disease reaches Pennsylvania elk.
“Is it going to wipe out our population? Probably not, based on the Colorado-Wyoming model, where they’ve had it for 40-plus years. They still have elk. They still have mule deer. But it’s certainly going to have an effect, and it’s going to change our management dynamics when that occurs.”
Mr. Colwell concurred: “It’s probably, truthfully, coming. That’s a big concern with everybody — tourism, me as a guide, elk hunters and the Game Commission. They’re the ones that have to control that.”