HOLDEN - When West Virginia acquires its first batch of wild elk for re-establishing its own herd in the state's Southern coalfields, the Division of Natural Resources will be ready to prepare them for release.
On Tuesday, a DNR crew began laying out the site of a three-acre elk holding pen on a reclaimed valley fill deck in the new, 4,300-acre Tomblin Wildlife Management Area, a part of what officials hope will become a 30,000-acre expanse of open reclaimed surface mines and timbered valleys extending into seven Southern counties.
"We're planning for a soft release once we get our elk," said Randy Kelley, the DNR's elk restoration project leader. "They'll be kept in our pen for anywhere from five days to up to two weeks, to get the adrenaline out of their systems after being trucked here, and to give them time to re-establish their hierarchy. When we think they're ready, we'll open the gate and let them wander out and then back in for food and water, until they decide to stay out on their own."
The woven-wire fencing and support posts for the pen were donated to the DNR by the West Virginia Chapter of the Rocky Mountain
Elk Foundation, which received the materials from its Virginia affiliate, after that state completed its elk stocking program. A Logan County mine equipment repair shop is donating a hammer-equipped excavator to drive the pen's support posts into the ground to support the 8-foot-tall enclosure.
"We should have the poles in the ground by the end of the week," Kelley said. "After that, probably sometime next week, we'll have a volunteer day for people who want to help with this project by helping us hang the fencing material."
Elsewhere in Logan County's new Tomblin Wildlife Management Area on Tuesday, a hydroseeding truck contracted by the DNR was spraying a fertilized clover and grazing-grass seed blend onto a pair of 10-acre former surface mine benches not far from the holding pen site. The vegetation initially planted on the reclaimed land "has matured out" Kelley said, and needed to be replaced. Dozers scraped away the old vegetation, to create a bed for the new clover and grass seed.
"Unlike whitetails, who are browsers, elk are grazers," Kelley said. "If the grazing is good in an area, they'll stay there until they need to go somewhere else. They're not a pioneering species."
A similar project recently was completed in the Panther Wildlife Management Area, in McDowell County, which also will be a part of the DNR's elk management zone. There, a 10-acre grazing opening was cut and three watering holes were dug, in a joint effort involving the DNR and the Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation. West Virginia's elk management area also includes the Southern parts of Boone, Lincoln and Wayne counties.
Precisely when West Virginia gets its first elk and how rapidly the restoration effort will proceed remains to be determined. It depends on how many wild elk are available for the state's initial stocking, and the supplemental stockings that will follow. Kentucky has completed its restoration program and has been making wild elk available to other states in recent years.
West Virginia and Wisconsin are hoping to use surplus Kentucky elk to start their restoration programs, with Wisconsin apparently getting its foot in the door first. West Virginia might look to other states to help kickstart its program.
Long-term leases for reclaimed mine land will be sought from coal and land companies for elk management and public access to see, and eventually hunt, the big-game species, which can weigh 800 to 1,000 pounds.
Kentucky's elk herd has grown to more than 10,000 individuals since the animal was reintroduced to the state, mainly on reclaimed mine land. Between 1997 and 2002, 1,556 wild elk were released in the state. After that, nature took over, and the elk population grew on its own, eventually spilling into neighboring West Virginia.
Since West Virginia's elk management area will be about half the size of Kentucky's, its herd is expected to be proportionately smaller, although the population density is expected to be about the same, Kelley said.
"An elk from Kentucky has been seen on this site," Kelley said. "I've called one in before, but he didn't call back. I can't wait to hear an elk bugle here in West Virginia."
While elk once ranged throughout the state's Eastern highlands, they were hunted out by settlers in the mid-1800s. West Virginia's last native elk was killed in Webster County in 1875.
Reach Rick Steelhammer at rsteelhammer@wvgazettemail.com, 304-348-5169 or follow @rsteelhammer on Twitter.