week of  2/6/02
 
 
 


New elk released, one elk euthanized
SMN
The Great Smoky Mountains National Park’s experimental elk release project experienced major success and a minor setback just days apart. Twenty-seven new elk from Elk Island in Canada were transported over 2,500 miles and released without injury into the acclimation pen in Cataloochee Valley on Saturday, Jan. 26.

Three days later an older cow from the original release (#10) that had taken up residence on a dairy farm near the Jonathan Creek community had to be euthanized. Jennifer Murrow, the field research leader for the project, said “at least half a dozen attempts had been made to tranquilize the elk and move her back to the park.”

Murrow said the cow presented a difficult challenge for researchers. “She had settled on top of a knoll and no matter which direction we tried to approach her from she could wind us. We have to get within 50 or 60 yards to dart an animal and she was just too wary.”

Murrow said due to the fact the animal was in a “no elk” zone and because of increasing pressure from dairy farmers, researchers and GSMNP biologists decided to euthanize her. The elk was taken to the University of Tennessee Veterinary School to be necropsied. Results were not available at the time of this story but Murrow said the elk was the picture of health.

The elk euthanized in September, 2001 because of neurological symptoms was free from any disease that would be contagious to cattle. Murrow hopes that if this necropsy comes back clean also, it will help assuage the fears of local cattle farmers and provide GSMNP staff and project researchers more time for recapture.

“It could take as long as a month to get the right conditions and opportunity to get close enough to tranquilize an elk that has stayed out of the park,” Murrow said.

The total number of elk in the park is now at 54. One of last year’s bull calves (#30) was recaptured just outside the boundary and placed into the acclimation pen to be released with the Elk Island herd this spring. Another cow (#9) has taken up residence on the Cherokee Reservation and her calf has been reported foraging in and out of the park along the Cataloochee Divide Trail. Both of these animals as well as the remaining herd are being monitored on a daily basis.

Murrow reminds the public that approaching the elk in the fields of Cataloochee is prohibited and that Big Fork Ridge Trail will be closed until the release of the elk from the acclimation pen in late March or early April.