Government red tape has captured a group of Canadian elk destined for their new home in Tennessee.
The 160 elk from Elk Island National Park are in technical limbo between wild and farmed elk. That grey area has kept the elk from leaving Canada for Tennessee, where they would be part of the state’s elk reintroduction program.
The elk live behind a 2.2 metre high fence in the federal government park, so they’re not actually free to wander at will, but they’re treated as wild elk in the park with minimal handling and human interference.
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United States Department of Agriculture health export certificates require that each elk is identified and the entire herd is tested for brucellosis and tuberculosis every five years. The program was developed for farmed cervids, which are more likely be exported.
While elk are extensively tested in the park, it would be nearly impossible to round up and test the entire wild herd, said Keith Lehman, the Canadian Food Inspection Agency’s animal health export program specialist for Western Canada.
“With a wild population, testing of an entire herd is not an option.”
Lehman said the federal agency wasn’t willing to sign the American elk export health certificate with its specific health requirements.
“We found the specific situation at Elk Island no longer fit with that wording,” he said.
“We’re very comfortable with the disease status of Elk Island National Park. It just became a technical wording issue with regards to certification.”
Lehman said there have been no regulation changes or changes to the health status of the herd since an earlier shipment of 122 elk from the park were relocated to Kentucky and Tennessee.
When the Tennessee Wildlife Resources Agency began their elk relocation in 2000, only two herds met their strict disease criteria: Elk Island National Park and Land Between the Lakes preserve on the Tennessee-Kentucky border, whose animals originated from the Elk Island herd.
“We felt very comfortable with the disease status of those animals,” said Garth Wathen chief of wildlife with the Tennessee Wildlife Resources Agency.
“Elk Island is one of those unique situations. It’s a closed herd behind a fence but at the same time is a wild herd,” said Wathen. “We believe that the data supports that herd is as safe as any herd in North America in a disease perspective,” he said.
“We’re kind of in between the rock and a hard place.”
Wathen hoped his agency would be allowed to bring the animals into the United States under a negotiated permit. He said they are appealing the USDA decision to stop the elk imports.
In 2000, the state of Tennessee hoped to relocate 400 elk to the state in four years and to have 1,400 elk in the state by 2016. Wathen estimates there are now 150-200 wild elk in the state.
