There’s been a good bit of attention devoted to Pennsylvania’s elk population. Most of us know very little about the history of elk, but most of us think of them as big deer, but that’s no quite true. Elk have been around for a good many decades: across America, but it was decided long ago that elk are not exactly farm animals. They don’t belong in congested areas or small patches of woods. For the most part, the elk population in the United States is concentrated in two areas – one is the coastal slope of the Northwest that falls away to the great rain forests beside the Pacific, and the other region is the ridgepole of the United States – from western New Mexico to northern Montana, and Idaho, the Rocky Mountains and their attendant ranges. The coastal slope is a rampart wilderness of giant fern, deep mosses and fir trees that are nearly 200 feet tall.. The ridgepole area is an incredible fastness of lofty snowfields, canyons, fertile basins, rivers and one of the great forests of the world. This area is savage in the winter, fairly gentle in the summer and simply beautiful at any time. It’s common to think of the elk as a western animal, but these big deer one ranged almost to the Atlantic. In fact, they were abundant in the east. Elk were probably the most widespread of all American hoofed species. It’s also common to believe that elk were originally a mountain species. Well, at least not entirely. While they probably were fond of mountains and forests, many inhabited prairies and meadows. Some biologist believe that the. first American elk ever described was seen by Jacques Cartier in 1535 as he ascended the St. Lawrence River. LaSalle in 1682 noted an increased number of bears and elk between Lake Michigan and Lake Erie. In John Madson’s book “THE ‘ELK,” he says, “In the early colonial days, there were so many elk in some eastern forests that their trails were used by traveling settlers.” Madson says, “For what it is worth, our elk isn’t an elk at all. Elk from the German elch, really describes the European moose.” He goes on to say we should call our elk WAPITI. This is an old Shawnee name for the animal, and probably the most proper of all. The Shawnee name is taken from the words wah, meaning “white”, and atik, meaning deer —- a reference to the spring coats of elk that have been bleached winter exposure. However, the name wapiti didn’t become standard usage until the early I 800s. It was no common use among the settlers. Madson also claims that elk are the most polygamous of our deer, and most likely to have a multitude of mates, By contrast, the whitetail deer is the least polygamous tending to have but one mate. He goes on to say, “It has been said that a monogamous race, in the long run, will triumph of one that is polygamous- But there is much to be said for polygamy among elk, for it insures the reproduction only by the strongest, most vigorous males,”Elk and big and strong, with a low birthrate. The elk also has a high survival rate which means it doesn’t have many animal enemies. John says, “Unlike smaller mammals that have a rapid-fire birthrate and a corresponding rate of mortality, elk reproduce slowly and steadily and have a high survival factor.” Pennsylvania is fortunate to have a herd of elk in several of its northern counties. Pennsylvania’s herd is small compared to western herds, but Pennsylvania is far more congested that many of the western states. There is simply not adequate space to sustain a large herd of one or two thousand elk. Even though our herd is probably less that 600 (and I might be generous with that number), there are still “nuisance” problems. Pennsylvania controls the herd size, to some extent, by using special hunting seasons to keep the herd size within the bounds of reason, and also keep it healthy. (Don Lewis is a long time outdoor writer for the Leader Times and other publications as well as the author of several books. His column appears each Friday on the Armstrong Afield page of the Leader Times.)

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