Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Elk Hunting Texas elk?

Last week my wife and I took a long tour around Texas - Amarillo and Palo Duro Canyon, drove through Dallas/Ft. Worth on way to Houston where we saw my nephew and grand-nephew as well as the San Jacinto battleground and the battleship Texas, Enchanted Rock/Canyon Lake and the Alamo in the San Antonio and surrounding hill country, the Big Bend national and state parks and the west Texas oil fields via Pecos. The biggest surprise we got was seeing on the road south of Fort Stockton as we approached Big Bend National Park. On the side of the road there were two cow elk. These were free range elk.

My question for you Texans is what are the free range elk populations like down there, where are they, and do you have a hunting season for them?

Elk are exotics in Texas

From regs:
Exotic animal refers to grass-eating or plant-eating, single-hoofed or cloven-hoofed mammals that are not indigenous or native to Texas and are known as ungulates, including animals from the deer and antelope families that landowners have introduced into this state. Includes, but is not limited to feral hog, Aoudad sheep, Axis deer, Elk, Sika deer, Fallow deer, Blackbuck antelope, Nilgai antelope, and Russian boar. Exotic fowl refers to any avian species that is not indigenous to this state, including ratites (emu, ostrich, rhea, cassowary, etc.).

There are no state bag or possession limits or closed seasons on exotic animals or fowl on private property. It is against the law to:

Hunt an exotic without a valid hunting license.
Hunt an exotic on a public road or right-of-way.
Hunt an exotic without the landowner's permission.
Possess an exotic or the carcass of an exotic without the owner's consent.

No one really knows how many Elk we have. One survey came up with 0.3 to 0.5 per mile for fly overs around Fort Stockton. TPWD considers them a nuisance which is too bad as Elk were native to Texas before being hunted out by the late 1800's. Most of the Elk are around the Glass Mountains with another population is in the Guadalupe Mt's but it is possible to run into them anywhere west of Ozona. Lots more on high fenced ranches in the hill country.

Also other areas with private herds. We see some off Hwy 36 south and west of Dallas/Ft Worth occasionally. These are not free range, but I think some escape from time to time.

Mike

We have a good sized herd here on the ranch, they have been here forever, we take a few cows and maybe 8-10 bulls off every year during deer season, depends when and where we see them. Rio7

Don't the elk tear up your fences... high or otherwise?

Video of nice bull between Marathon and Ft Stockton (not by me). Healthy heard on the Longfellow Ranch which is in that area and they are free to wander as they please.

https://vimeo.com/179335081

I know of some now free range animals in areas of Llano and Burnet county. They showed up after the big 2005 flood in that area did some water gap and fence removal. Amazingly some are still around!!!!

You were 5 miles from my house.

The Elk, here on the ranch don't bother the fences, but they have a lot of room and and are not competing with cattle for grass. Rio7

Was perusing some of my old colonial Texas/Louisiana area notes and conversing with old son on this subject. He reminded me of a quote from Francois de la Harpe's journal on his expedition up the Red River to Oklahoma.

He wrote that" in the vicinity of The Rapides (present Alexandria La area) one of the Canadiens in their party shot a "whistling deer".

Later on when they reached the Nasoni (a Caddoan group) villages, west of present Texarkana, the Nasoni hearing of their approach prepared a feast. They had spitted what most historians think was an entire elk over a fire! But de la Harpe wrote in his diary ( having NOT seen the beast prepared) stated it was a unicorn les Sauvage were preparing!

Why did he state this. Because the governor of Louisiana at the time stated to him before he departed, they received reports of unicorns in the area!! Be on the lookout!! De la Harpe, being the typical governmental suck up, did not want to disappoint the governor!

Just thought these were interesting stories!

Bob, about 20 years ago I was talking to an old timer, he was over 90years old, he told me his Grandfather told him the Elk, in the winter used to migrate out of the mountains in Mexico, to here in the Rio Grande, valley that was before fences. but he is not the only one that has told me Elk, are native to S. Texas.

Never heard of Elk, refereed to as { whistling deer ) interesting. Rio7

Well there's plenty of archaeological evidence they were there!

Evidently the whistling deer were no strangers to them as that is what the canadien referred to them
As!

Incidently One of the things that is prevelant in all the diaries, journals, letters, etc kept by French. They were specific with there references to their
Personnel too! Differentiating between Canadiens, French, Sauvages, and German. Lots of Germans brought into Louisiana pre-1760. Apparently at the request of the governor. Seems the Germans want to work and farm! All the French wanted to do was run off to woods, marrry up with a native girl, hunt, trap, and fish all day. It was in the pre-Acadian removal days. Before the area was handed over
To the Spanish in 1763/64.

Where in South Tx.? The area around Copper Canyon looks Elky and they had Grizzlies until possibly as late as the 1950's no question they were there in the 1850's.

There used to be Elk on the Grand Prairie near me, in Arkansas. We do have them on the Buffalo River in North Central Arkansas but they were brought back, mostly from Colorado. miles

Maybe a bit of interest in this article;

https://www.google.com/amp/circleranchtx.com/are-elk-native-to-texas-yes/amp/

Great article, Thanks Bob, for posting it,that's the first conformation I have seen in writing of Elk in Starr county, guess the old timers are right. imagine that Rio7

Blue,

I thought you'd like that!!!

Bob

Texas' native elk could very well have been the Merriam's elk (a now extinct subspecies) which were found throughout the southwest, but those in north Texas were probably the prairie subspecies. Both, however, were the same species as the elk that survived in Yellowstone which served as the source population for elk that were reintroduced throughout the interior west, starting in the late 1920s.

Texas Elk just spotted in West Texas