The Glass Mountain ranch, Iron Mountail ranch, the Kincaid, the the old Cap Yates ranch, the Gage and some others has had free rangeing elk since I was a kid and thats a damn long time ago. If I recall Cap Yates stocked them and they flourished..These ranches are North of Marathon, Texas and Northeast of Alpine, Texas...
In the early 1800s elk were native to the Alpine, Marfa, and Ft Davis area of the Texas Big Bend, but not in large numbers I am told, they did not stock them in there, they "restocked" them to their native home, but I suppose this is argueable as some of the biologist have different ideas. I have talked to some of the very old timers and they all said their were elk and buffalo in that area long ago..My good friend the Adams's killed a grizzley there in the 40's near Stillwell Crossing...
In fact the elk was a plains animal and is not native to the Pacific North West Mountains where he is now hunted, he was driven into the mountains by hunting pressure from the meat market..
I might add that these Big Bend ranches are huge in the 100,000 ac. catagory with only 3 strand barb wire around them and they are Mountain ranches. The have Mule Deer, Coues Deer, White tail and cross bred deer, and Elk in abundance. I hunt in Idaho and I assure you that I don't cover near that much territory during an Idaho elk hunt in the Selway. so who decides what is free ranging, someone that has never been there? that won't work.
Sometimes I think folks hear of something and then develope preconcieved notions without having looked into the situation or even a clue as to what they are talking about..They, in fact, have obviously never been in that area.
