ORIGINAL: crbaker123
Okay well everyone has their right to believe which ever way they please!
In my opinion it is not right.
It is stressful on the elk and if the elk wanted to inhabit the other states they would go there.
Elk have the ability to move.
And if people want to hunt them they need to cough up the dough and travel to states that already have elk.
I may be biased to the situation because the areas in oregon that they take the elk from is where my family and I hunt.
I think others would be mad if trophy animals that you have been scouting all year all of a sudden disappear because they are transplanted.
And MTdream and Colorado Luckydog dont get me wrong butif the elk population in your hunting grounds was being eliminated then you would be b*tch*ng too.
crbaker,
Your outlook is way too simplistic and selfish. You're saying you want yours and screw the big picture. The reality is most of the elk herds in the western US are the result of transplants that occurred in the early 1900'sfrom the Yellowstone area...and that includesOregon!!! Now how would you like it if my ancestors in Montana had said piss on you Oregonians we're keeping the elk for ourselves? Modern day transplants usually come from multiple states if possible to increase the genetic diversity of the transplant herd, and they usually consist of multiple releases of just a few animals at a time. The other factor is that transplants generally consist mostly ofcows. Why? Simple, elk are polygamous so you don't need that many bulls for a foundation herd. The more cows you have in the population the more rapidly it can grow,and become self sustaining and hopefully huntable.Here's a link to information about theelk transplants to Tennessee so you can learn more. Don't worry, they came from Elk Island, Alberta.
http://www.tennessee.gov/twra/elkquestions.html
Your argument that elk can just move is pretty much null as well. There's far too many human caused barriers to allow elk to legitimately migrate from the west to reasonable habitat areas in the eastern U.S. There's almost no way that a breeding herd of elk could have moved to say Kentucky which now has thousands of elk thanks to the transplants of just 1500 over a 5-year period (
http://www.rmefnky.org/kyelkherd.HTML), also mostly from Elk Island.
If somebody told you that the elk in your hunting area were all shipped off to another state they're pulling your leg. Most elk transplanting activity has actually been highly curtailed in the last five or so years due to increasing concern over chronic wasting disease.
Did they honestly capture and transplant the elk that you had "been scouting all year" right before the season? I don't buy that. Most capture programs happen in the winter or early spring time when the elk are herded up in their more accessible winter range. In the summer they're scattered all over generally higher elevation range that makes them hard to capture. Not to mention it's extremely dangerous for the young calves.