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Northern Arizona Elk Are On Their Way To West Virginia
By: Associated Press
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FLAGSTAFF, Ariz. (AP) – Dozens of elk await trucking to West Virginia after being rounded up in grasslands of a northern Arizona wildlife area.
The Arizona Daily Sun reports wildlife officials netted sixty elk from the Raymond Wildlife Area about 30 miles southeast of Flagstaff, then used a helicopter sling to take them to a holding pen for a month-long quarantine.
Director of the West Virginia Division of Natural Resources Stephen McDaniel says the process aims to bring elk back to West Virginia, which hunted off the last of its native Eastern elk around the 1860s.
Big Game Program Supervisor with the Arizona Game and Fish Department Amber Munig says the translocation is a welcome opportunity for Arizona wildlife managers to further conservation and help another state re-establish an elk population.