The ranchers have saved them from the TPWD.

There has been a heard in the glass mountains south west of Fort Stockton for 25 years or longer.

I wish they roamed all of Texas again.

We had a cow over at our place in Iraan a couple years ago. Had her on camera a few times but disappeared.

Have hunted on a place south of Alpine and seen some on that ranch. I have also been driving between Marathon and Alpine and seen a herd right off the road.

Worked on a logging unit at Longfellow for a while. Elk were all over that place.

I got one free range between Kerrvile and Mountain Home 30 years ago.

I have a place low fence in the hill country.
I have several bull and cow elk on trail cam.

Wildlife biologist told me their is a free range heard of 200+ in the hill country with numerous off shoots of the main heard.

I guess I have one of the off shoots.

This is all good to hear. Wish TPWD had funds to research the herd to see if it is viable for management. To me, it already sounds like it is from the THF posts.

As long as the co-exist in same habitat as the Bighorn, then they will be seen as a nuisance. Big horn comes first in their opinion, and that rule holds true on their managed lands. Couple of us have hunted the herds that got push out of Serria Daiblo

I have seen elk in Foard and Cottle Counties, however, I believe they either escaped or where released from a HF ranch along the Pease. They were running with cows and I thought I was seeing things.

Bighorn comes first because TP&W has declared bighorns as their star. I know I could never afford a bighorn hunt, but might be able to afford an elk hunt one of these days in Texas from the way it sounds.

To clarify, i wasn't implying that they shouldn't be hunted, was simply saying that they should be categorized as game animals. Then leave it up to TP&W on whether to manage thru open season, land owner voucher, etc...Just think categorizing them as non-native with a year round open season is being somewhat dismissive of such a desirable animal

As they should. to cheap and easy to do elk hunts elsewhere...nothing cheap or easy about hunting bighorn. Besides, an exploding elk herd will send MD pops in steep decline, like it has all across the West. Having said that, those private landowners out that way have the ability to do as they please, slaughter them if they don't want them, let them live if they do and it's probably the best scenario for everyone.

my neighbor has elk on his HF ranch... you can hear them bugling in the mornings.. .cool stuff!

Exactly their stance. Mr. Wolf said that they are non native and compete with the sheep. He said they stood down from shooting them on Sierra Diablo when the public started to grumble and decided to offer the elk on public hunts. I told him that NM and AZ both have ecosystems very similar to Texas and they have both species and have no problem. All about the $

Ponderosa Pine?

Its because Gov tag brings 100k. Okla raises close to a 100k if not more on their public land elk draw hunts. You would think TX could figure it out

I sure wish some would follow the Red River to Montague and Cooke counties.

-ww

Found a RMEF map that shows current and historical ranges of elk. Interesting...check it out:
http://www.rmef.org/Conservation/WhereWeConserve.aspx?elkrange=true&projects=false

Its hard to see elk on my low fence open range property in Texas an let them pass ( but I have been doing it). My hope is to let them multiply. I can understand not wanting Elk to compete with whitetail or other native animals, but they sure are nice animals that I would love to see grow in population.

Unfortunately being a low fence area, my neighbors may not feel the same way.

My plan is to not shoot any elk on my property unless my young daughters want to take one.

They are native, at least that was the story told back in the 80's.

They're as native as the wolves that were turned loose in YellarStone.

Big horns should come first. They're native, very volatile, and need to be reestablished well.

Yes elk were native, but they aren't worried about going extinct.

Actually, those wolves were not native to Yellowstone.