Four cow elk and a bull calf made their way up a hill after being released on a reclaimed strip mine... 
(Rhonda Simpson/AP Photo)
More than 150 years after Virginia's last native elk was killed, game officials may try to populate the state's southwest corner with its bigger, buff-colored cousin — the Rocky Mountain elk.
They say bringing back an elk subspecies could offer hunters another big-game animal and boost tourism in rugged southwest Virginia, but farmers fear it also could infect their livestock with diseases and damage crops.
As it happens, some elk have already arrived.
An estimated 125 to 150 Rocky Mountain elk have wandered into Virginia from Kentucky, where a restoration effort is well under way. That state is now home to more than 11,000 of the animals spread over 16 southern and southeastern counties. They graze on the reclaimed remnants of strip mines and attract hunters and tourists who want to glimpse an elk or hear its haunting bugle.
Kentucky's elk restoration success has inspired Virginia to look anew at a management plan involving the Rocky Mountain species, encouraged by hunters and local officials who are seeking an economic stimulus in the coalfields territory, where unemployment flirts with double digits.
"I think there's a lot of folks who would advocate that elk would enhance tourism and economic activity in the area of southwest Virginia and the coal-mining region," said Charles Yates, a member of the Board of Inland Game and Fisheries.
The proposal, scheduled for an initial hearing Thursday, has stirred opposition from farmers and support from hunters, based on hundreds of comments sent to the Department of Game and Inland Fisheries.
Elk restoration could nurture livestock diseases such as tuberculosis and brucellosis, Commissioner Todd S. Haymore of the Virginia Department of Agriculture and Consumer Resources wrote to the department.
The last known Eastern elk bagged in Virginia were taken in 1854 and 1855 in Clarke County, in the state's far northern corner near West Virginia. Their skins are stored in the Smithsonian Institution. The species is now extinct.
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