Where Do Elk Live? Elk Range and Reintroductions in the US

Elk habitat: forest edges and meadows

Elk are animals of the edge. They graze on grasses and herbs in open meadows, valleys and grasslands, but rarely stray far from forest, which gives them shade in summer, shelter in storms and cover from predators. Typical elk country includes:

• mountain meadows and alpine parks above the treeline in summer
• aspen groves and open pine and fir forest
• foothills, sagebrush valleys and grassland in winter
• coastal rainforest, river flats and logged clearings in the Pacific Northwest

Elk are adaptable. Tule elk live in the dry oak grasslands and marshes of California, while some prairie herds once lived in open plains far from mountains.

Elk range in the western US and Canada

The core of the elk’s range today is the American West. The largest herds live in Colorado, Montana, Oregon, Idaho, Wyoming, Washington, Utah and New Mexico, with healthy populations in Arizona, Nevada and parts of California. In Canada, elk live in British Columbia, Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba, with smaller numbers in Ontario and the Yukon.

Before European settlement, elk lived across most of what is now the United States and southern Canada, from the Pacific coast to the Appalachians and from Canada south into northern Mexico. Overhunting and the spread of farms and towns removed them from most of the East by the mid-1800s, and the eastern elk subspecies became extinct. Merriam’s elk of Arizona and New Mexico disappeared soon after.

Where elk were reintroduced in the East

Since the early 1900s, wildlife agencies have moved elk from western herds, mainly Rocky Mountain elk from Yellowstone and other sources, to places where elk once lived. Some of the best-known projects are:

• Pennsylvania. Releases began in 1913. The herd now numbers around 1,000 or more and is centered on Elk County and the Benezette area.
• Michigan. Elk were released in the northern Lower Peninsula in 1918 and now form a herd of around 1,000 to 1,500.
• Arkansas. Elk were released along the Buffalo National River in the early 1980s.
• Wisconsin. Elk from Michigan were brought to the Clam Lake area in 1995, and a second herd was later started in Jackson County.
• Kentucky. About 1,500 elk were released in the eastern coalfields between 1997 and 2002. Former strip-mined land, replanted with grass, turned out to be ideal elk habitat, and Kentucky now has the largest herd east of the Rocky Mountains, with state estimates of more than 10,000 elk.
• Tennessee and North Carolina. Elk returned to Tennessee’s Cumberland Mountains and to Great Smoky Mountains National Park in the early 2000s. The Cataloochee Valley is now one of the best places in the East to watch them.
• Missouri, Virginia and West Virginia. These states started herds in the 2010s, mostly with elk from Kentucky.

Reintroductions are not always simple. Elk can damage crops and fences, and they can carry diseases, so new herds are usually placed in remote areas with public land and monitored with radio collars.

Summer and winter ranges

In mountain regions, elk move with the seasons. In spring they follow the melting snow uphill to reach fresh, protein-rich plants, and calves are born on the way or on the summer range. In fall, deep snow pushes them down to lower valleys, where wind or sun keeps the grass open.

These migrations can be long. Some elk of the Greater Yellowstone area travel more than 200 km (125 mi) between summer and winter ranges, and thousands spend the winter on the National Elk Refuge near Jackson, Wyoming. Roads, fences and housing developments can block migration routes, so several western states now work to protect key wildlife corridors.

Where predators returned, elk behavior also changed. After gray wolves were brought back to Yellowstone in 1995, elk numbers on the park’s northern range fell and the herds moved more often, though scientists still debate how strongly this affected plants such as aspen and willow.

Elk outside North America

Wapiti are not only American. Native populations live in the Tian Shan and Altai mountains of Central Asia, southern Siberia, Mongolia and northern and northeastern China. Some Asian forms are sometimes treated as separate subspecies or even separate species.

During the Ice Age, wapiti lived across much of Eurasia, as far west as France. Today the deer of Western Europe are red deer, a closely related species.

People have also introduced elk to other continents. Elk released in New Zealand’s Fiordland in 1905 have largely interbred with introduced red deer. Elk and red deer introduced to Argentina in the early 1900s are now considered invasive there, competing with native deer such as the huemul.

Where to see wild elk

Good places to watch elk include Yellowstone and Grand Teton national parks, Rocky Mountain National Park in Colorado, Jasper and Banff national parks in Alberta, the Olympic Peninsula and Oregon coast for Roosevelt elk, Point Reyes National Seashore for tule elk, and the Cataloochee Valley and Pennsylvania Wilds in the East. Fall is the most exciting season, when the bulls bugle; see why do elk bugle? Keep at least 25 yards (23 m) away and use binoculars.