Elk once roamed much of eastern North America. Their range quite possibly exceeded that of white-tailed deer. With European settlement and excessive hunting, elk gradually disappeared from the east. Elk were eliminated from North Carolina by the late 1700’s and were rare in the east by the mid-1800’s. The last known wild eastern elk was killed in Pennsylvania in 1877.
Elk have been restored to a number of states in the east. Kentucky has had the most successful program, with a current estimate of 13,000 elk in the state. In North Carolina, fifty-two elk were re-introduced to the Catalooche Valley area of the Great Smoky Mountains National park in 2001 and 2002. Current estimate of the elk population in North Carolina is about 200.
I spent six days in late September photographing the elk in the Smoky Mountains; two days at Catalooche Valley and 4 days in the area around the Oconaluftee Visitor Center. I had more opportunities and better success at Oconaluftee.
I had three types of images in mind before my trip. 1) Images of the elk crossing the waterways, 2) Images of elk on foggy mornings with temperatures cold enough to see the breath of bugling elks, and 3) Images of bull elks sparring. I spent most of my time concentrating on waterway crossings. I wore chest waders so that I could wade into the rivers and be able to shoot directly down the waterways. There was only one morning with temperatures cold enough that I could capture the breath of bugling elks. And although the rut was occurring and battles did take place between bulls, I did not capture any images with which I was particularly pleased. This was partly due to the tall grasses in the fields.
Here are my favorite images from the trip.
2022 Update
Here are a few favorites from my fall 2022 trip to photograph the elk of the Smoky Mountains. Unfortunately this year most of the fields had been mowed by Park personnel and images of the elk had the look of elk roaming a golf course. There were a couple of foggy mornings that did yield decent images of elk in the fields. And I did capture a few nice images of elk crossing the water ways.
