Free Images - SnappyGoat.com- bestof:NCElk-27527-3.jpg A wild North American Elk Cervus canadensis canadensis bull feeding along the edge of a field in the Cataloochee Valley of the Great Smoky

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Elk were eliminated over time with loss of habitat and overhunting from the settlers in the region. In 2001 they were reintroduced and are continuing to thrive in the Smoky Mountains.

Elk walking in a flooded field. Near Reedsport on the Oregon Coast. A popular area for tourists. Time of year antlers are ready to fall off and grow new ones.

A scenic view of a deer grazing on a green meadow

Bull elk with antler rack in Jasper National Park

Elk with big antlers walking on a meadow in the wilderness

A 7x7 bull elk bugles in a mountain meadow in Wyoming just before sunset.

Moving toward another male, this one bugles in the frosty morning air in the Smoky Mountains.

$With more than 19,000 species documented in Great Smoky Mountains National Park, it’s one of the most biodiverse areas managed by the National Park Service. But for a long time a key species was missing - the eastern elk.\n\nElk herds once used to roam the entire Appalachian Mountain range, extending from northern Georgia all the way up to southeastern Canada. But the area said goodbye to its last eastern elk in the mid-1800s when decades of over-hunting and habitat loss made this population of elk extinct.\n\nIn 2001, the National Park Service began re-introducing elk to the region, not sure if the elk would be able to survive. They took 25 elk from Kentucky’s Land Between the Lakes National Recreational Area and brought them back to Cataloochee Valley. Then, a year later, 27 more elk were introduced from Elk Island National Park in Alberta Canada. \n\nWhile these elk are not the original species that first wandered the lands of the park in the 1700s, they are adapting well to their new home and slowly, but surely, thriving. Park biologists estimate that there are close to 200 individual elk in the park today.$

The male Rocky Mountain elk (Cervus elaphus) is a subspecies of elk found in the Rocky Mountains and Yellowstone National Park. In the Spring time with velvet on the antlers.

A Roosevelt elk bull roams a field in North Bend, WA

Lone elk foraging for food in the Wyoming woods of Yellowstone National Park.

A Bull Elk Bugling in Late Afternoon in Cataloochee, NC, United States

Massive Bull elk eating snow as he searches deep snow for food in the Yellowstone Ecosystem in western USA of North America.

Elk wildlife animal in fall rutting season. October Autumn

Portrait of a large male elk with spectacular velvet antlers – Jasper National Park, Canada

Wapiti elk stag with big antlers is grazing in the forest meadow in early spring.

Male elk bugling in the field in Cataloochee

A bull elk walking in the meadow in the Great Smoky Mountain National Park, North Carolina.

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