Elvis is back in the building, well, at least back in a fenced enclosure.
This week the West Virginia DNR captured and moved the escaped elk from Greene County, Pennsylvania in Marshall County and relocated the critter to the West Virginia Wildlife Center at French Creek. A source close to story tells me those involved nicknamed the elk "Elvis" because of the rampant reports of sightings until he was finally corralled.
There are several things about the whole incident which are unsettling.
Elvis became an unwitting celebrity. Folks of the region were enamored by the idea of an elk roaming wild and free across the northern panhandle of West Virginia. It certainly seems like a romantic picture, but nobody stops to consider what might have happened had a car hit Elvis on the highway. A car hitting a whitetail deer can cause several hundred dollars damage. When a car hits a 1,500 pond bull elk the car is totaled and people get hurt or die. Sure I’m aware they have cars in Colorado and Montana. It’s just a thought.
The DNR also took a pounding in the press for doing its job here and I want to defend them just a bit. The agency is charged with protecting the state’s wildlife. One of the biggest threats to wildlife today is disease–particularly CWD– which has been found in West Virginia and is known to be prevalent in captive deer and elk herds. Elvis was part of a captive herd. He escaped a game farm in bordering Greene County, Pennsylvania.
Folks were outraged at the thought of killing Elvis, but that’s the protocol with any exotic species and in this case protocol was broken when he wasn’t put down.
Instead, Elvis has been moved to another county of West Virginia, potentially exposing cervid creatures in Upshur County to illness should he be infected. The DNR’s hands are largely tied by public opinion on this one. Chances are he isn’t infected with anything, but safety procedures are developed because it only takes one. Making exceptions can cause disastrous consequences.
Finally, and maybe the most disturbing part of this whole odyssey, nobody in Pennsylvania knew Elvis had left the building. Game farms in Pennsylvania are overseen by the Keystone State‘s Department of Agriculture. A bill is under intense debate here in West Virginia to shift the authority here from DNR to Ag. When West Virginia wildlife biologists were able to confirm the presence of an elk they reported it to Pa. authorities immediately. I’m guessing the tag in his ear was the dead giveaway.
West Virginia DNR Game Management Chief Paul Johansen confirms nobody in Pennsylvania was aware of any missing elk. The Pennsylvania Game Commission was unaware there was a captive facility in Greene County. The Pennsylvania Department of Agriculture finally did some checking and realized there was a facility there, but had no idea any animals had escaped. No escape had been reported to the authorities even though Elvis the bull and a couple of cows reportedly went missing more than a year ago. One of the cows was killed, one recaptured, and Elvis wandered into West Virginia.
Considering the potential threats to the wildlife of Pennsylvania–not to mention surrounding states like West Virginia–somebody somewhere should have been doing a better job on inspecting, reporting, and record keeping on captive herds.
