Elk from northern Arizona to help rebuild population in West Virginia

Sixty elk taken from the Raymond Hill Wildlife Area near Flagstaff will be relocated to West Virginia to bring the species back to the state.

BY JOE GILMORE

Jan 26, 2018, 10:54 AM

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PHOENIX — Arizona will be transferring a number of elk from northern Arizona to West Virginia in an effort to bring the species back to the state.

The Arizona Daily Sun reported that 60 elk were captured at the Raymond Hill Wildlife Area near Flagstaff and will be transported to West Virginia in the next few weeks.

The state hunted off the last of its native species in the 1860s.

“We’re the ones that drove them out so we should be the ones to try to bring them back and reestablish them,” Stephen McDaniel, director of the West Virginia Division of Natural Resources, told the Daily Sun.

West Virginia contacted Arizona a few months ago to talk about relocation because Arizona’s elk population is relatively healthy and free of diseases, such as tuberculosis and chronic wasting disease.

Amber Munig, spokeswoman for the Arizona Game and Fish Department, welcomed the opportunity to help another state reestablish their lost population and to further conservation efforts.

This is the second time Arizona has exported elk to another state. The first was in 2000 to Kentucky.

The elk will be quarantined for a month in a holding pen at the wildlife area before being trucked across the country.