Virginia officials to study impact of increasing elk population; cattlemen worry about disease

Va. to size up impact of increasing elk population

RICHMOND, Va. — Virginia game officials will study the consequences of increasing the number of Rocky Mountain elk in the state’s remote southwest corner, a move opposed by cattle farmers fearful of the spread of disease.

Elk can transmit tuberculosis and brucellosis to domestic cattle, though there have been no confirmed reports of that occurring in Kentucky, where more than 11,000 elk roam 16 counties. Some have hopped the state line to Virginia.

“One infection can shut down the whole cattle industry,” Bill Osborne, a cattle farmer in Tazewell County, told the Board of Game and Inland Fisheries on Thursday.

Virginia’s beef cattle industry, the state’s No. 2 agricultural commodity by cash receipts, ships most of its animals to out-of-state feed lots. Infected herds must be quarantined.

The game board took the initial step of asking the Department of Game and Inland Fisheries to develop a “plan of action” for a potential elk restoration plan for southwest Virginia. The vote did not commit the board to creating an elk plan.

Board members said they would work with cattle and other agricultural interests in examining any management plan. A draft of the report is expected back before the board in April.

Robert W. Duncan, executive director of the game department, said department staff will look at every aspect of expanding the state’s elk population to ensure it would not threaten farming interests. “We would be absolutely the first people who say ‘Let’s don’t do this,’ if we think there’s a problem,” he said.

Virginia’s native elk, a cousin of the bigger Rocky Mountain version, was hunted into extinction more than 150 years ago. A restoration plan involving the Rocky Mountain subspecies has been promoted by sportsmen’s groups and some officials in economically depressed southwest Virginia to encourage more tourism.

The Virginia Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services opposes elk restoration.

Game board members said they would draw heavily from other states that have established Rocky Mountain elk, especially Kentucky, which has the largest herd of elk east of the Dakotas. They graze on former strip mines and attract hunters and tourists to view stations where they can see the animals or hear their bugle.

Virginia has previously rejected moves to re-establish elk, with disease transmission a key concern. Kentucky’s wayward elk have prompted the debate anew.

“We now have elk in Virginia. We cannot deny that,” Duncan said. “We know where most of them came from, too, they came from Kentucky stocking efforts. What do we do with ones we have?”

A representative of bowhunters and the Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation, a nonprofit that promotes the species and its habitat, encouraged the game board to move ahead on the plan.

Most of the speakers, however, traveled to Richmond from southwest to speak forcefully against increasing the state’s elk population.

Dr. Anne Yearians, a veterinarian and cattle farmer, spoke of the “terrible, terrible consequences” of elk transmitting disease to domestic livestock.

“We’re interested in keeping the elk population down and, if they do occur, we’re really not interested in having them at all,” she said.

The game board tabled a proposal to halt the hunting of elk, which hunters can do with a deer tag. They decided now would not be a good time to do that with deer season in full swing.