The elk we enjoy today are direct descendants of those original Rocky Mountain elk that came from Yellowstone National Park. In 1916, Eaton was hired once again to round up an additional herd of one hundred elk from Yellowstone to be transported by rail back to the Pennsylvania counties. So, in 1913, the first group of fifty Pennsylvania-bound Rocky Mountain elk were successfully rounded up and shipped via train and reintroduced to our eastern landscape. Howard Eaton sold wild game to the railroad workers and wealthy easterners, and also provided guiding services to hunters and explorers in Wyoming’s Yellowstone, and Montana’s Glacier National Parks, developing quite a reputation among frontiersmen, big game hunters and even presidents. In 1913, sponsored by the PA Game Commission, and hired by the Superintendent of Yellowstone National Park, an American frontiersman, Howard Eaton, was charged with rounding up 50 Rocky Mountain elk in Yellowstone for later release in two Pennsylvania counties – Clearfield and Clinton Counties.Įaton was born in 1861 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and at the age of 17 had moved out west to the Dakota Territory to raise cattle and horses, where he was later joined by two brothers. Ironically, in the early 1900’s, a group of conservationist-hunters took the initiative to capitalize on a Federal program designed to thin a massive herd of over-abundant elk from Northern Yellowstone National Park in Wyoming, and transplant them into barren game lands in Pennsylvania. It’s reported that by the late 1870’s the last of the eastern herd were literally wiped out in Pennsylvania, and the last elk purportedly shot in Centre County. As the settler populations grew into the 19 th century, elk were pursued by area farmers who regarded them as a major threat to their livelihood. During winter, they were a generous and tempting target for hunters. As they settled and established their encampments and built up their communities, the elk continued to roam, foraging near these settlements throughout the year. Later, in the 17 th and 18 th centuries, European settlers from France, Spain, and England migrated westward to America, to the eastern parts of the country. Throughout the area, before and during the 16 th century, Indians hunted them for food and used their skins for blankets, teepees, and clothing. The herd was once prominent from northern New York down through central Georgia, with earlier recorded accounts of eastern elk habitat found further north in parts of Maine, New Hampshire and Massachusetts.

The eastern subspecies once found in Pennsylvania was an established part of the landscape for centuries, leading into the early colonialism of North America. There are two subspecies that are now extinct, the eastern and the Merriam’s. The total number of Rocky Mountain elk ranges between 800-900 thousand, and the number of Rocky Mountain elk in Central Pennsylvania is estimated at between 1,300 – 1,400. Today the estimated total number of combined elk in North America is approximately 1.2 million. And last, Rocky Mountain elk, the largest subspecies, who live in the mountain ranges east of the Cascade Range. Further west, the Roosevelt elk rage from the northern California coast through Oregon, Washington and western Canada.

Then moving east are the Manitoba elk who once roamed from Colorado and the Eastern Rockies north into Canada. North American elk are currently made up of four different subspecies: The smallest, Tule elk, are primarily found in the central and northern areas of California. Let’s set some context so we can begin to think about how they have evolved into the landscape, and continue to thrive here in the PA Wilds…. Where did they come from? When did they get here? What do they eat? How big is the herd? And where can we find them?! Young or old, into nature or not, I think we all have a sense of wonder when it comes to the magnificent elk in the Pennsylvania Wilds’ Elk Country.

Pennsylvania elk herd