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Posted By: Coyote_Hunter Texas elk? - 05/16/17
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?
Posted By: LostArra Re: Texas elk? - 05/16/17
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.
Posted By: Tejano Re: Texas elk? - 05/19/17
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.
Posted By: Mikewriter Re: Texas elk? - 05/19/17
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
Posted By: RIO7 Re: Texas elk? - 05/19/17
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
Posted By: southtexas Re: Texas elk? - 05/19/17
Don't the elk tear up your fences... high or otherwise?
Posted By: 32_20fan Re: Texas elk? - 05/19/17
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
Posted By: kaywoodie Re: Texas elk? - 05/19/17
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!!!!
Posted By: Reloder28 Re: Texas elk? - 05/20/17
Originally Posted by Coyote_Hunter
Last week my wife and I took a long tour around Texas - ...where we saw my nephew and grand-nephew as well as the San Jacinto battleground and the Battleship Texas...


You were 5 miles from my house.
Posted By: RIO7 Re: Texas elk? - 05/20/17
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
Posted By: kaywoodie Re: Texas elk? - 05/26/17
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!
Posted By: RIO7 Re: Texas elk? - 05/26/17
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
Posted By: kaywoodie Re: Texas elk? - 05/26/17
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.
Posted By: Tejano Re: Texas elk? - 05/26/17
Originally Posted by RIO7
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


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.
Posted By: milespatton Re: Texas elk? - 05/26/17
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
Posted By: kaywoodie Re: Texas elk? - 05/26/17
Maybe a bit of interest in this article;

https://www.google.com/amp/circleranchtx.com/are-elk-native-to-texas-yes/amp/
Posted By: RIO7 Re: Texas elk? - 05/27/17
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
Posted By: kaywoodie Re: Texas elk? - 05/27/17
Blue,

I thought you'd like that!!!

Bob
Posted By: mudhen Re: Texas elk? - 05/27/17
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.
Posted By: bea175 Re: Texas elk? - 05/27/17
Texas Elk just spotted in West Texas

[Linked Image]
Posted By: RIO7 Re: Texas elk? - 05/27/17
Yep! They look Just like the Elk the west coast Prune pickers brag about at the game stations in Colorado, , every fall. Rio7
Posted By: RIO7 Re: Texas elk? - 05/27/17
Mudhen, were the Merriam's Elk, smaller than the Rocky mountain Elk ? or Yellowstone Elk? Rio7
Posted By: mudhen Re: Texas elk? - 05/27/17
Originally Posted by RIO7
Mudhen, were the Merriam's Elk, smaller than the Rocky mountain Elk ? or Yellowstone Elk? Rio7
It is generally accepted that they were a little smaller, but no real evidence exists at the population level. They were basically extinct before anyone had an opportunity to study them.
Posted By: kaywoodie Re: Texas elk? - 05/27/17
Ben, what's your take on Merriams??? Apparently many think they never were a seperate sub species. That they never existed.
Posted By: kaywoodie Re: Texas elk? - 05/27/17
Originally Posted by bea175
Texas Elk just spotted in West Texas

[Linked Image]


Too funny!!!

Considering the old Spanish word (17th-18th century) use for elk was "Buro". One "R".
Posted By: mudhen Re: Texas elk? - 05/27/17
Originally Posted by kaywoodie
Ben, what's your take on Merriams??? Apparently many think they never were a seperate sub species. That they never existed.
I think that, as likely as not, they were a desert adapted ecotype (the new term for most populations of what have been called subspecies). The few museum specimens that exist do show some variation in size and skull characteristics compared with the Rocky Mountain elk. However, they were described during the time when vertebrate taxonomists made their reputations describing previously unnamed taxa, and many of the "subspecies" have since been found to not be genetically distinct from their sister subspecies. With the advent of DNA analyses, it has finally become possible to mathematically describe just how different or alike any two individual specimens or populations really are.

Coincidentally, I spent most of the day at a gathering over in Portal, AZ, on the west side of the Chiricahua Mountains. When I moved down here 25 years ago, I researched the possible occurrence of elk in the Animas and Peloncillo Mountains here in New Mexico and the Chiricahuas over in Arizona. There were no valid records of elk from either mountain range, nor were there records for the Sierra San Luis and Sierra Madre south of us in Mexico. Recently, a prehistoric archeological site just outside of Portal was revisited and the depth and extent of the excavations were extended. I had heard that the dig had turned both elk and bison bones, neither had ever been known to occur in these "sky island" mountain ranges. A friend who works at the Arizona Historical Society in Tucson was there today and I asked her about this. She confirmed the finds and promised to send me a copy of the report.

I think that we have a Pollyanna-like notion that the first naturalists to visit many parts of the west and record their observations were describing a pristine and relatively static landscape. In fact, the Apaches and their predecessors had been here for a long time before the first anglos were finally able to spend any amount of time here. They had a tremendous impact on the native biota, both large and small. Small, isolated populations of elk and bison which had been here since the late pleistocene could very well have been extinguished by aboriginal hunters prior to the visits of the first Europeans. They certainly did it with many other pleistocene large mammals.
Posted By: kaywoodie Re: Texas elk? - 05/27/17
Thanks Ben! Makes heck of a lot more sense. Was speaking again with old son last night (both my sons received anthropology degrees, young son went on with his studies) and he asked if I remember there field school when he was a senior in Natchitoches. It was a pre-contact (not by much) Caddoan site on the grounds of the federal fish hatchery. He went on to say that he finally got a chance to see the completed report on their work and some of the faunal remains they found were identified as a large cervid most likely elk.
Posted By: LouisB Re: Texas elk? - 05/28/17
Coworker has in-laws in the floyadada area and he says a couple of ranches in the"area" have elk and they are "well protected".
Posted By: crshelton Re: Texas elk? - 05/28/17
Kaywoodie,
Those Texas elk with the long ears are related to THE TEXAS JACKALOPE. Here is a real Texas elk cow taken on the Long View Ranch in 2013:

[Linked Image]

No horns, but a lot of excellent meat!

PS - since you have such good taste in rifles, you may want to check out some recent threads over on Africa Hunting forum that deal with .405 double rifles:
https://www.africahunting.com/threads/double-rifle-in-405-winchester.38622/
Posted By: kaywoodie Re: Texas elk? - 05/28/17
Thanks CR!!!
Posted By: bigwhoop Re: Texas elk? - 05/29/17
Originally Posted by LostArra
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.



The last law listed is a bit odd. Are you supposed to get the owners consent before you acquire their carcass? You sure as hell won't get consent after you acquire it!
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