The opportunities were endless."Ī study by the University of Kentucky reports a tangible economic impact is already being realized because of the elk. At the time, there were 3.7 million acres in our proposed area. We wanted to try to do everything we could to set ourselves up for success. "That was really the driver that made us think this can work, and there's plenty of habitats there. "Eastern Kentucky is where our mining industry is, and through that practice, it creates early successional habitat and grasslands, which is perfect for elk," Jenkins said. Less than 25 years after the first elk stepped foot in Kentucky since the 1840s, there are more than 15,000 of the half-ton animals within a 16-county cluster in coal country, according to the 2019-20 annual elk report. The average elk eats roughly 40 pounds of vegetation each day and farm owners were concerned about the animals destroying their crops, so the thousands of sparsely populated and undeveloped abandoned coal mine sites in eastern Kentucky offered the perfect habitat. "The financial aspect of a large movement of animals all across the country needed a partner to help us work through that, and that's where RMEF came in and where our relationship started."Īccording to the report, Elk had been abundant in western Kentucky's grasslands during presettlement times, but most of that land has since been developed. "We start working together trying to find a means and a mechanism to pull off and help restoration in the east by making those contacts in the west," Jenkins said. In 1997, an association of hunters called the Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation (RMEF) offered to pay for a multimillion-dollar six-year plan to relocate more than 1,500 elk from the western states to Kentucky. Most of Kentucky's threatened game was restored over the years. Eastern Kentucky made the most sense to us." This would be a big endeavor, and things that we were looking for were a low-road network, lots of open areas that elk can utilize and feed on, low populations of people, just a good, open expanse. There were elk in Michigan and Wisconsin, but there weren't any in the southern part of the U.S. "And as a lot of those things were starting to wrap up with deer, turkeys and otters, we were looking at the next step, and for us, it was elk. "When you look at fish and wildlife agencies, they were very involved in species restoration," said Gabe Jenkins, former Kentucky Elk Program coordinator in an RMEF-produced video. The Whitetail deer population now exceeds 1 million and generates around $550 million annually from hunting licenses, tourism, rifles and other hunting paraphernalia. The Kentucky Department of Fish & Wildlife was established in 1944 and soon began reintroducing animals, such as the Whitetail Deer, of which there were fewer than 1,000 after the Great Depression. The pre-Civil War abundance of elk in Kentucky is noted by the names of towns, like Elkhorn City in Pike County, and bodies of water,6 like Elkhorn Creek in central Kentucky, but no elk remained in the commonwealth by the late 1800s. The land is being developed into a nonprofit nature reserve called Boone's Ridge set to open in June of 2023. According to its website, the development expects to create 3,300 new jobs in the region.Įlk roam in a single-file line on a section of a 12,000-acre reclaimed coal mine site in Bell County. Boone's Ridge is set to open in the summer of 2023 and is expected to draw nearly 1 million visitors a year and pump $200 million annually into the regional economy by selling itself as a suitable place to view elk. David Ledford owns a 12,000-acre plot of reclaimed coal mine land in Bell County, which has a 30% poverty rate and an average household income of $26,000, making it one of the poorest counties in the country.Īccording to an article in The New York Times, Ledford and his business partner, Frank Allen, are currently developing that land into a nonprofit nature reserve called Boone's Ridge that will offer a museum and bird- and animal-watching opportunities. It turns out that reclaimed coal mine sites, which are plentiful in eastern Kentucky, offer an ideal habitat for elk.
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