Herd Mentality: WVU researchers keep once-native elk healthy in southern W. Va.

On a silent and misty autumn morning, a high-pitched shriek pierces the fog in a Logan County valley. As it echoes from there and rises over the trees, a second, otherworldly scream follows. There’s no mistaking the sound and what it means: It’s breeding season, and West Virginia’s elk herd is on the move.

Amy Welsh, professor of wildlife and fisheries resources at the West Virginia University Davis College of Agriculture and Natural Resources, and graduate student Adam Cook have been studying this group of animals for several years. They’ve worked with the West Virginia Division of Natural Resources to understand the herd’s genetics, the animals’ adaptive differences, and run a parentage analysis, all of which may dictate the elk population’s future potential success. It’s vital for going forward, because reintroducing the animals hasn’t been easy.

Elk disappeared from West Virginia more than a century ago. They roamed the forests of the eastern United States prior to European colonization but were extirpated from the region by the late 1800s due to hunting and logging. Efforts to reestablish eastern populations began in the 1890s, but early reintroductions failed because there was no way to monitor a herd’s progress.

A century later, the WVDNR began studying the requirements for a possible reintroduction of the animals after the state legislature passed a 2015 law allowing them to be returned to West Virginia; however, it wasn’t until Kentucky established a herd that the Mountain State was able to put its own plan into action.

In 2016, the WVDNR brought 24 elk from a herd in Kentucky’s Land Between the Lakes National Recreation Center and released the animals into Logan County’s Tomblin Wildlife Management Area. In 2018, 15 more LBL elk arrived, as did 60 elk from an Arizona herd.

Capture and relocation are hard on megafauna, and the new population faced an uphill battle from the start. Fourteen of the Arizona animals died due to stress and a parasitic brainworm. Since then, the WVDNR has been working to grow the herd, but transitions are tough, especially with a potentially deadly parasite present in the ecosystem. To support the health of the animals going forward, Welsh and Cook joined the effort during the summer of 2023 and have studied the genetic diversity of both LBL and Arizona elk.

That diversity is vital in a small group of animals.

“It has really important implications about the future sustainability of these populations,” Cook said. “Because when you lose diversity, you can get inbreeding, loss of fitness and population shrinking.”

The results are in

Almost two years after they began their study, Welsh and Cook have determined that the Arizona elk are more genetically diverse than the LBL elk; however, the Arizona animals have a higher risk for mortality due to brainworm.

The LBL elks’ genetic similarities makes sense, Cook said, because the population was fenced in at their original habitat, and this isolation led to less diversity.

Additionally, Welsh and Cook were able to identify both parents of most of the calves born in West Virginia since the reintroduction, and the news is encouraging.

“We are definitely seeing a mixture occurring between LBL and Arizona elk,” Cook said. “More than half of the 41 parent pairs we identified had one parent from Arizona and one parent from LBL.” Other herds with two distinct groups of animals don’t always blend, and it’s hard to know why, but the parentage analysis shows the West Virginia herd is indeed mixing.

For calves born into an environment where they’ll be susceptible to brainworm, this genetic advantage may give them a better chance of survival. Hopefully, they’ll inherit the LBL parent’s resistance to infection and the genetic diversity of the Arizona parent.

“You've got these two positive things,” Cook said. “Each of these groups has something that won’t be lost as the generations continue.”

As for parentage analysis, Welsh and Cook discovered that the LBL bulls are fathering more offspring than the Arizona bulls. They hypothesize that the older, more experienced LBL bulls have better mating success, but it could also be due to the females’ preference.

“LBL elk are Manitoban elk and Arizona Elk are Rocky Mountain Elk,” Cook said. “Manitoban elk are known to have larger body mass, but Rocky Mountain Elk are known to have larger antlers. So, that could be playing a role in the sexual selection. It'll be interesting to see if that trend continues.”

The parentage analysis came with a few surprises, as well. One unidentified elk found near the border is suspected to be from Kentucky’s herd.

“It’s encouraging that we could see this migration or movement of elk coming from that large Kentucky population,” Cook said. “Kentucky reintroduced elk from six different sources. So increasing connectivity would be really good for our smaller population.”

Currently, the West Virginia herd hovers around 130 animals. That may seem like a tiny fraction of the larger herd across the border, but managing elk is a long game.

“In terms of population, the numbers aren't spectacular yet,” Cook said. “Each individual is not going to produce a ton of offspring every year. It's more of a slow growth thing. But they’re a long-lived species.”

It’s a promising start. And the WVDNR, now armed with the WVU researchers’ new data, will be able to make informed decisions about genetics, health and future reintroductions. With any luck and a lot of work, the bugling calls of wild elk will echo through the West Virginia hills long into the future.