West Virginia's effort to reintroduce elk to the state's southwestern counties just got a huge boost.
A coalition of public and private contributors has teamed up to acquire 32,000 acres of active forestland, mainly in Logan and Mingo counties, for the reintroduction effort.
"This will serve as the linchpin that allows us to move forward on a serious elk-restoration program," said Paul Johansen, wildlife chief for the West Virginia Division of Natural Resources. "Not only will it allow us to secure and manage habitat, but it will also help us provide perpetual access to the public for hunting and viewing not only of elk, but for a variety of wildlife species."
Early in the push toward an active elk-restoration effort, DNR officials said they wanted to acquire at least one parcel of land comprising at least 20,000 acres. Up to now, however, the two sizable tracts the agency was able to acquire came in at roughly 4,500 acres apiece - and those tracts were located more than 30 miles from one another.
The 32,000-acre parcel, while not completely in one piece, would give the agency an adequate place to anchor its elk program. The final boundaries have not yet been negotiated, but officials familiar with the deal say most of the land surrounds the Tomblin Wildlife Management Area in Logan County, the Laurel Lake WMA in Mingo County and the Big Ugly WMA in Lincoln County.
DNR Director Bob Fala called the acquisition "pretty close to the largest chunk of land we have ever acquired."
"As an agency, we've been working on this for more than a year," Fala said. "It took a lot of meetings with a lot of people, and a lot of components had to come together to make it happen."
Two organizations from the private sector - The Conservation Fund, a nonprofit organization from Arlington, Virginia, and the Acres for America program, supported by Wal-Mart - have agreed to buy the land and hold it until DNR officials are ready to buy it for the state.
Joe Hankins, vice president of The Conservation Fund, said grants totaling about $7.5 million will pay for the acquisition.
"We're under contract to acquire 32,000 acres sometime in December," Hankins said. "Once we own the land, we'll negotiate with the state and determine which parcels the DNR wants for wildlife habitat. Then we'll divide the rights to those parcels so the state can maximize public access, wildlife habitat and elk-reintroduction potential."
Hankins said timber-cutting probably would continue on at least some of the land. Because elk prefer to live and graze in open fields and savannas, logging would create much-needed habitat for the animals.
"Forestry is a near-perfect match with the habitat needs of elk," he explained. "An arrangement like this is a great model for co-managing the property to generate revenue and jobs from timbering, but to do so in such a strategic way that we also provide great habitat for elk."
DNR officials are particularly excited about the land deal because it promises to give the public long-term access to wildlife-rich property.
"Some of the 'public' land we have in that part of the state didn't carry a guarantee of perpetual access," Fala said. "This acquisition will give us the sort of perpetual access the people of Southern West Virginia want and deserve.
"Because of active leases for private hunting preserves and because of active mining, a lot of people who live in the Southern counties have been locked out of land they'd historically had access to. With this land deal, they'll regain access to a really large piece of land - not only for elk viewing and hunting, but also for rabbit hunting, woodcock hunting, turkey hunting and deer hunting."
DNR officials say they're working on similar deals to acquire even more habitat for elk and other species.
"This deal gets us a long way down the road toward our goals [for the elk-restoration effort]," Johansen said. "This is the sort of stuff that makes it difficult for me to sit still in my chair. But we're not done, not by a long shot. We're looking at other opportunities in the area."
Reach John McCoy at johnmccoy@wvgazettemail.com or 304-348-1231.