ipsc, they have been mixed with red deer so the horns will grow much bigger, even though we would all love to kill a world record, mixing those genes within the wild free roaming elk may be disasterous. Red deer have evolved within their natural environment, which is not the rockie mountains. Through natural selection and evolution( sorry hard liner christians) red deer have evolved to surivive in the environment in which they live. Now that genes may be passing on to the elk which live in the rockies, new traits may be bred into the herd thus changing the genetic makup and the traights that help wild elk survive in the rockies.

In my opinion, this would be messing with natures way, and setting back the time clock of evolution. All of this happened in the name of the all mighty dollar. It sounds like most of the elk were rounded up and that is great, less chances for inpurities. This issue goes far beyond the chance of diseases being transferred to the wild elk, but even that could be disasterous too.

I think the word genetically inferior does not mean that one is inferior to the other, but relates more to the genes within the environment. I hope that I did not make this as clear as mud!!!