Elk now a popular attraction in state
By Joe Mosby / Arkansas News Bureau
Friday, December 26, 2008 11:13 AM CST
With the conclusion of the 2008 Arkansas elk hunting season, some assessments can be made, and “change” is heavily involved.
Our elk, just 27 years old as an Arkansas wildlife species, are moving around, becoming much more wary and are increasingly difficult to hunt. Also heading into alterations is the way the big animals are managed by the Arkansas Game and Fish Commission.
Think back 11 years, to 1998 and the first elk hunting season in Arkansas. Twenty permits were issued from more than 15,000 applications. Seventeen of those public land permit hunters scored with elk. Some others were taken on private land.
Fast forward now to 2008. At the September hunt, two of four hunters with public land permits got their elk. One other was killed on private land where there was a quota of three. Then in the December hunt, 21 persons had public land permits, and there was a total quota of 10 more elk in two private land zones.
Eleven elk were taken by hunters on public land, but two of these were illegal kills. One elk was taken on private land.
Much notice is being taken of who those hunters were who brought down the 12 total elk, but this is just a talking point. First elk was taken by an adult male. The next two were by boys. The fourth was by an adult male. The last eight were by adult women.
Yes, women can hunt elk. We’ve got solid evidence now.
More of interest to the managers and the close observers of Arkansas elk is where the hunters scored.
Seven of those 12 elk in the December 2008 hunt were taken on Gene Rush Wildlife Management Area of the AGFC. This has become the hot elk zone, and it is partly due to extensive habitat work that has been done on the management area. Elk have plenty of large openings with tasty and nutritious grass to eat and nearby woods for cover.
For the first two or three years of elk hunting, more hunters were successful in Elk Zone 1, which is along the Buffalo River between Ponca and Pruitt in Newton County. This is changed now, and in the just-ended hunt, only one elk fell to a hunter in Zone 1.
In 2007, the AGFC made a major land purchase just to the east of the present Gene Rush WMA. Called the Cash property then, the 2,761 acres are in the Richland Creek valley near its junction with the Buffalo River. The AGFC on Thursday, Dec. 18, named this tract the Sonny Varnell Richland Valley Elk Conservation Area, recognizing a former AGFC commissioner who had a strong interest in the elk program.
The tract’s fields were formerly used for cattle raising. These are gone now, and management of the land is for elk and other wildlife, with the objective of increasing the range for elk in the area. A second objective is to draw elk off private lands in Searcy County where some landowners don’t welcome them.
Still in the planning stage for the Game and Fish Commission and for the Ozark National Forest is the concept of expanding elk through use of habitat work south into the national forest from the Buffalo River environs.
Also in the planning stage and with some survey markers already on the ground is a project of the Arkansas Highways and Transportation Department to build six pullouts for elk viewing visitors along Arkansas Highways 43 and 21 in Boxley Valley in western Newton County.
There are an estimated 100 elk living in and near Boxley Valley, and they have become a viable tourist attraction for the area. Local business owners tell of people coming up from Dallas and other places to spend a day or two just to see Arkansas elk.
Joe Mosby is the retired news editor of the Game and Fish Commission and Arkansas’ best known outdoor writer. He can be reached by e-mail at jhmosby@cyberback.com.
