User:Delvethedragon/Alabama elk experiment

One of the four herds of elk entrusted to local private landowners in Alabama

The Alabama elk experiment was a failed attempt in the early 20th century by the Alabama Department of Game and Fish to reintroduce elk (Cervus canadensis) to their original range in Alabama. The United States Department of the Interior (DOI) agreed to accord an allotment of elk to the State of Alabama if the Alabama Legislature would enact adequate protections for elk into law. In early 1915 the Legislature passed protections for elk, and later that year the Secretary of the Interior granted an allotment of elk to the state.

A herd of fifty-five Rocky Mountain elk (C. c. nelsoni) was captured in Yellowstone National Park, Wyoming, and transported in sleighs to Gardiner, Montana, where they were loaded into cars and shipped by freight. They arrived in Alabama in February 1916 and were apportioned into four nearly equal herds that were entrusted to local landowners in Pickens, Sumter, Tuscaloosa, and Calhoun counties in the north-central part of the state.

Despite optimism that the reintroduction would be successful—with the Alabama Department of Game and Fish believing that the elk's population would increase rapidly akin to a previous white-tailed deer introduction—by 1922 all of the elk had died, including a number of calves that were born after the project began, succumbing to poaching, disease, and other natural causes.

History

Prior to European colonization, it is estimated that 10 million elk lived in North America, but due to a number of factors including habitat loss and over-hunting by European settlers, by the 20th century the elk population had fallen to 100,000. East of the Mississippi River, a subspecies of elk called the Eastern elk (C. c. canadensis) was widespread and is known to have been present in parts of Alabama, but it was driven to extinction by the encroachment of European agriculture and over-hunting.

Although Eastern elk are believed to have gone extinct sometime in the 19th century, there is some evidence that there may be some descendants living today. A herd of elk given as a gift to New Zealand by Theodore Roosevelt may be of partial Eastern elk origin; and there have been possible sightings of Eastern elk herds living in Canada as recent as the 1980s, but this remains unconfirmed, and Eastern elk continue to be presumed extinct.

[expand and re-write this later]

Reintroduction

Proposal of reintroduction

[BGP, USDA proposes reintroduction of elk to the Game and Fish Commissioner of Alabama; Alabama passes legislature to make elk reintroduction happen]

Capture of elk and transportation to Alabama

[discuss capture of elk and their transportation]

Strategy and management

[who the elk went to, where, and how they were managed]

Outcome

[outcome of reintroduction attempt, challenges, and causes of failure]