Jerry Davis: Elk reintroduction shifts south to Jackson County
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release plan has the potential of putting Wisconsin’s elk population on a fast track of reaching goals of 1,400 animals in the original Clam Lake area and 400 elk at a second site in Jackson County.
There are currently about 160 elk in Ashland, Price, Rusk and Sawyer counties in northern Wisconsin, all descendants of 25 Michigan elk released there in 1995.
About 150 Kentucky elk will be trucked to Wisconsin during the next three years. The first 50 animals will go to Jackson County; next year’s 50 to Clam Lake; and the last 50 will be split between the two sites.
“That 1995 release in northern Wisconsin was an experiment, not a reintroduction,” Wallenfang said. “In about 2000, the Natural Resources Board accepted the responsibility to manage the elk and it was no longer an experiment.”
Currently there is a cooperative trapping effort between Kentucky and Wisconsin to coral 50 animals, check them for diseases, transport them to a holding pen in Black River State Forest, hold them in quarantine for total of 120 days, and then open the gate and allow the animals to walk into the state forest.
The crews doing the capture and related work are employees of Kentucky and Wisconsin, or partners from the Ho-Chunk Nation and the county forest.
“We found a state (Kentucky) who has never had a case of chronic wasting disease,” Wallenfang said. “In payment of kind, Wisconsin will assist Kentucky in improving the ruffed grouse habitat in their state.”
It is unclear whether any Wisconsin ruffed grouse will eventually be given to Kentucky, but the habitat must be improved before there is any chance of those birds increasing the current population.
The makeup of each year’s 50 elk is dependent on what walks into the “traps.”
“We know we won’t get any mature bulls, because the traps exclude those animals based on size and antlers, so it’s mostly cows, calves (some that are males) and a few young bulls,” Wallenfang said. “The antlers on any young bulls will have to be sawed off so as not to injure other elk.”
While the animals are being held in pens in Kentucky, and later in Wisconsin, they will be cared for by a Wisconsin crew, ear tagged, pit tagged, fitted with GPS collars, and receive numerous health checks.
Some of the cows could have calves before the Jackson County pen gates are opened, and those will be collared, too, but no other new calves will be captured in the wild and collared the first year.
The seven-acre holding pen has a double fence, eight feet high, so there will not be any contact with large wild animals outside the pen.
The change in the protective status of the gray wolf will not change any of the release plans.
“These elk in Jackson State Forest will have better habitat than those in northern Wisconsin,” Wallenfang said. “We expect this population to grow much more quickly than the population released in 1995.”
Feeding the newly released wild elk will be prohibited. Anyone with animal feeders will be required to remove them if elk start visiting those areas.
Wallenfang is head of Wisconsin’s elk program and the official spokesperson for the elk advisory committee.
Nearly all the expected necessary costs ($550,000) have been raised through contributions.
The Cable Chamber of Commerce estimates the Clam Lake elk population generates about $200,000 in revenue each year.
Kentucky has an estimated elk population of about 15,000 animals.
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