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Are Elk Native to Texas? Historical and Archaeological Evidence for the Natural Occurence of Elk in Texas Richardson B

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Are Elk Native to Texas? Historical and Archaeological Evidence for the Natural Occurence of Elk in Texas Richardson B Are Elk Native to Texas? Historical and Archaeological Evidence for the Natural Occurence of Elk in Texas Richardson B. Gill, Christopher Gill, Reeda Peel, and Javier Vasquez Free-ranging elk, Cervus canadensis are found today in the Trans-Pecos region of Far West Texas. Throughout the twentieth century and until now, most wildlife bi- ologists believed that elk were only native to the Guadalupe Mountains of Texas and, therefore, that the current elk are exotic imports, rather than a native species and subspecies. We present eyewitness accounts and reports from 1601 to 1905 docu- menting the historical presence of native elk throughout Texas; archaeological discoveries of elk bones, antlers, teeth, and paleofeces that indicate the presence of elk in Texas since the Pleistocene; historical reports of elk antlers found on the ground or in archaeological excavations; and examples of prehistoric rock art depicting native elk. We also present morphological, statistical, and DNA evidence to refute the idea that there was a separate species or subspecies called Merriam’s elk that once inhabited the Guadalupe Mountains. DNA research indicates that today’s free- ranging elk in the Davis and Glass mountains are the result of the natural immigra- tion of elk from the Lincoln National Forest of New Mexico, just north of the Texas border, to recolonize areas of their former native range in the Trans-Pecos. The evidence presented substantiates the presence of native elk throughout Texas prior 1 2 Journal of Big Bend Studies 28 • Gill, Gill, Peel, and Vasquez to the extirpation that occurred in the nineteenth century and demonstrates that they were not only the same species, but also the same subspecies, as the elk in and east of the Rocky Mountains today—Cervus canadensis canadensis. Introduction Vernon Bailey, the chief fi eld naturalist of the Bureau of Biological Survey, U.S. Department of Agriculture, stated in his infl uential Biological Survey of Texas, published in 1905, “There are no wild elk to-day in the State of Texas, but years ago, as several old ranchmen have told me, they ranged south to the southern part of the Guadalupe Mountains, across the Texas line” (Bailey 1905:60). Bailey’s assertion has been interpreted to mean that there were never any native elk in Texas, except in the Guadalupe Mountains. A strict reading of his claim, however, is that there were no wild elk in Texas in 1905—which was true. He did not say there were never wild elk anywhere else in Texas. Unfortunately, the misinterpretation of Bailey’s statement has informed most wildlife biologists since 1905. As it has been taken as common knowledge that native Texas elk were restricted to the Guadalupe Mountains, the interpre- tation of archaeological evidence in the rest of the state has been infl uenced by this misinterpretation. Assuming elk to be nonnative, archaeologists have been reluctant to identify large, ancient mammal bones as possibly those of elk.1 Biologist Del Weniger presented evidence of the natural occurrence of elk in Texas in his book, The Explorers’ Texas: The Animals They Found, but his work has been largely ignored (Weniger 1997:46–51). Most wildlife biologists have believed the elk present in the Trans-Pecos today to be descendants of imported nonnative elk (e.g., Pohler et al. 2014:466). To further compound the problem, the 1997 Texas Legislature statutorily defi ned elk as an exotic, nonnative species.2 This designation has affected wildlife management policies in the state. Elk are treated as exotic animals on public lands in Texas and, as such, are subject to being and have been “lethally removed” (TPWD 2006:13, 22, 24; Pittman 2010:13, 26, 28, 36; Mike Pittman, e-mail to Richardson Gill August 30, 2012). 1. Some unidentifi ed bones in the Texas Archeological Sites Atlas reports have been described as “large mammal bones,” some as “larger than deer,” and one as “deer-bison” (http://nueces.thc.state.tx.us/). 2. Elk are defi ned as nonindigenous in two statutes of the Texas Parks and Wildlife Depart- ment (TPWD) Code: Section 43.103(3): Defi nitions (p. 300) and Section 62.015(a): Hunting and Possession of Exotic Animals (p. 427). www.statutes.legis.state.tx.us/Docs/ SDocs/PARKSANDWILDLIFECODE.pdf, Internet, accessed February 2017. Are Elk Native to Texas? Historical and Archaeological Evidence 3 Elk belong to the large family of deer, the Cervidae, which includes red deer, white-tailed deer, mule deer, moose, reindeer or caribou, and other deer in Asia and Europe. Within this family, elk belong to the largest genus, Cervus, the most widespread and best-known deer in the world. DNA studies by Chris- tian Ludt and his colleagues (2004:1064, 1074, 1075) indicate that the fi rst ancestors of today’s red deer and elk appeared as early as 25 million years ago in central Asia between Kyrgyzstan and northern India, most likely near the Hindu Kush in Afghanistan and northern Pakistan. They ultimately spread across the Northern Hemisphere to Europe, across Asia, and into North America. Elk appear to have moved across the Bering Land Bridge into North America during the Illinoian glacial maximum (300,000–130,000 B.P.3), when the fi rst elk fossils appear in Alaska. They spread into central North America during the subsequent interglacial Sangamonian stage, between 125,000 and 75,000 years B.P. (Guthrie 1966:50, 53–54; Bryant and Maser 1985:9–11; O’Gara and Dundas 2002:82). Texas was most likely the southern limit of the native range of North American elk in today’s U.S. There are no reliable reports of elk fossils or reli- able historical sightings south of Texas in Mexico (Carrera and Ballard 2003). However, northern Mexico is poorly known archaeologically and historical records are widely scattered and not easily accessed. Thus, negative data from the region is not conclusive evidence for an absence of elk. Free-ranging elk (Figure 1), Cervus canadensis (Mattioli 2011:423), classi- fi ed by some in the past as Cervus elaphus (e.g., Ellerman and Morrison-Scott 1951:367), can be found today in many of the mountain chains in the Trans- Pecos region of Texas. They are mostly descendants of elk that migrated from New Mexico (Dunn 2016:16–17)), although a few are descendants of elk that were imported from other areas of North America and released by the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department (TPWD) or onto ranches by landowners (Witt 2008:1– 2). In 2008 Dr. Elizabeth Cary Mungall, science offi cer for the Second Ark Foundation, adjunct professor at Texas Woman’s University, and author of Exotic Animal Field Guide: Nonnative Hoofed Animals in the United States, estimated the number of free-ranging elk in Texas at 1,621 including 1,246 in the Trans- Pecos region (E.C. Mungall, e-mail to R. Gill, August 17, 2011). In addition, there are herds behind high fences on private ranches throughout the state. 3. B.P. is the acronym for “before present.” It denotes a time scale used in archaeology and other scientifi c disciplines to reference when events occurred in the past. It is used in radiocarbon dating, and standard practice is to use January 1, 1950, as the “present” or origin of this age scale. 4 Journal of Big Bend Studies 28 • Gill, Gill, Peel, and Vasquez But is it true that the only native elk in Texas were in the Guadalupe Moun- tains? In this paper, we present historical sightings and reports of the presence of elk in other areas of Texas beginning in 1601, archaeological reports of elk bones and antlers, historical reports of elk antlers found on the ground, and prehistoric rock art depicting native elk. This body of evidence substantiates the presence of native elk in Texas from the Panhandle in the north to the Lower Rio Grande Valley in the south and from East Texas to the Trans-Pecos prior to the extirpation that occurred in the nineteenth century. We also present morphological and statistical evidence, as well as DNA studies that strongly suggest that the elk that lived throughout the state prior to being extirpated in the 1800s were the same species and subspecies of elk found in Texas today. In other words, today’s free-ranging elk in the Trans-Pecos are not an exotic species—they are a native species that has repopulated areas of its former range through natural migration. Historical Evidence We conducted an ex- tensive search of his- torical elk sightings and reports in libraries and in Google Books and Google Scholar. Each sighting/report was carefully re- viewed and evaluated. They are presented chronologically from 1601 to 1868—the date of the last report- ed sighting. The only potential subsequent report of elk in Texas is Bailey’s report from the Guadalupe Moun- Figure 1. Elk (Cervus canadensis) at Circle Ranch, Sierra tains (see Introduc- Diablo, Hudspeth County, Far West Texas. Photograph by tion); while no date is Christopher Gill. Are Elk Native to Texas? Historical and Archaeological Evidence 5 associated with this report, we estimate it to be ca. 1880. Sport hunting and, undoubtedly, market hunting took their toll on the elk and by 1905 there were no native elk left anywhere in Texas. The quotes we present were taken directly from diaries and journals. No corrections were made for spelling or grammar. In a few instances, to aid in understanding, words and distances (in metric and English units) have been inserted in brackets. Additionally, the sightings and reports are grouped by region and tabulated in Table 1.
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