are elk native to texas? historical and archaeological

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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

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.

IntroductionVernon 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.

3Are Elk Native to Texas? Historical and Archaeological Evidence

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.


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 EvidenceWe 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-tains (see Introduc-tion); while no date is

Figure 1. Elk (Cervus canadensis) at Circle Ranch, Sierra Diablo, Hudspeth County, Far West Texas. Photograph by Christopher Gill.


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. The date or estimated date of the sighting is listed, if known; otherwise, we list the publication date. Recorded fauna associ-ated with each elk sighting is also listed.

Spanish Period

1601: Texas PanhandleThe earliest recorded sighting of elk in Texas occurred in 1601. The Spanish governor of New Mexico, don Juan de Oñate, embarked on an exploration of lands to the northeast of Santa Fe. He started from the capital of New Mexico, San Juan de los Caballeros,4 and traveled to the Canadian River, which he fol-lowed across the Texas Panhandle to today’s Texas-Oklahoma border (Bolton 1908:255n2). Along the way, Oñate described seeing a new kind of deer:

This river [the Canadian] is thickly covered on all sides with these cattle [bison] and with another not less wonderful, consisting of deer which are as large as large horses. They travel in droves of two and three hundred and their deformity causes one to wonder whether they are deer or some other animal.

Having travelled to reach this place one hundred and eleven leagues [617 kilometers (km), 383 miles (mi)], it became necessary to leave the river, as there appeared ahead some sand dunes; and turning from the east to the north, we travelled up a small stream until we discov-ered the great plains covered with innumerable cattle (de Oñate 1601:255).

4. New Mexico’s fi rst capital, San Juan de los Caballeros, was later known as San Juan Pueblo, and today is known by its pre-Hispanic name, Ohkay Owingeh.


1654: Central TexasIn 1654, Sergeant Major Diego de Guadalajara and a group of 30 soldiers and about 200 Christian Native Americans traveled to the Jumano lands on the Concho River. When the Spaniards wanted to proceed on their journey, the Jumano informed them that there was a confl ict involving the Cuitoa, Excanx-aque, and Ayado. Guadalajara remained on the Concho with the Jumanos, but sent Captain Andrés López with 12 soldiers to the lands 30 leagues (125 km, 78 mi) east of the Concho, probably between present-day Brady and Brown-wood, where they found a ranchería or village of the Cuitoa. The Spanish engaged the Cuitoa in battle, captured 200 prisoners, and took 200 bundles of deer,5 elk, and buffalo hides (Wade 2003:74). The battle and the booty were reported by Fray Alonso de Posada, who was a missionary in New Mexico from 1651 to 1661 and the custodian of missions in New Mexico between 1661 and 1664 (Fernández Duro 1882:53–54, 58–59).6

1759: North TexasOn March 16, 1758, an estimated force of 2,000 allied Taovayas, Comanches, Tonkawas, and Hasinais attacked Mission Santa Cruz de San Sabá near Menard, Texas, killing the priest and 18 others (Hämäläinen 2008:59). In response, the viceroy ordered a punitive campaign to attack a Taovaya settlement on the Red River. On September 7, 1759, the Spanish force departed the San Sabá mission. With them was Captain Juan Angel de Oyarzún and his company of 50 men from San Luis Potosí. In his diary, de Oyarzún wrote that on September 30, the troop arrived at a creek they named Arroyo de los Buros, or Elk Creek, just beyond the West Fork of the Trinity River, probably in Jack County, northwest of present day Fort Worth. The entry from de Oyarzún’s diary reads:

This day also dawned cloudy and with cold wind; but the march was undertaken in a northeasterly direction, and six leagues were traveled over plains with a few extended hills. In view from the right side

5. The Spanish word used in the original document is gamuza, which is normally translated today as antelope or suede. In Central Texas, however, we believe gamuza more likely refers to deerskin.

6. Alonso is alternately spelled as Alonzo; Posada is alternately spelled as Posadas (Fernán-dez Duro 1882:53; Tyler and Taylor 1958:288n1). Tyler and Taylor reviewed a manuscript copy of a document authored by Posada in the Archivo General de la Nación Mexico, Historia, Tomo 3, in which his name is spelled Posada. We follow that spelling in this article.


were some live-oak woods. It has grama grass and other species, green and tall, bears and many buffalo, some deer of the common kind, and the large ones called buros, rabbits, hares and many pools of rainwater.

In the vicinity of one of these [ponds], camp was made today, and scouts were dispatched to the Laguna Grande. Other measures also were taken for protection of the horse herds and for the prompt de-parture of the troop, if necessary. This watering place was recognized as that of the buros for the many it maintains. This species resembles deer, although its body and antlers are larger. As a rule they are, when grown, like a medium-sized horse, and the antlers ordinarily attain the height of two varas [1.7 meters (m) or 5.5 feet (ft)]. For this reason the Comanche Indians use them to make bows for their arrows. The color of the hair is dark bay, and because every year they shed the horns, some were found in the countryside, and one that we found was nearly two varas long and had fourteen points (de Oyarzún 1759:119).

The word buro—not to be confused with burro, or donkey—was the term used by de Oyarzún to designate elk (Weddle 2007:1–11, 23–25). It should also be noted that venado bura today refers to a mule deer, but mule deer do not have 1.7-m (5.5-ft) antlers that can be made into bows, as de Oyarzún observed. Clearly, the meanings of buro and bura during the Spanish period were differ-ent from their meanings today and meant elk.

1767: North TexasJean Brevel claims to have traveled along the Red River to near its headwaters and thence to Santa Fe in 1767.7 Dr. John Sibley wrote a letter to General Henry Dearborn in 1805 in which he reported a conversation that he had with Brevel regarding his trip. Brevel was the son of a French father and Caddo mother. He was born and raised among the Cadodaquious, a Caddo group in North Texas.

7. Dan Flores, a historian at the University of Montana, believed the story of Brevel’s trip to Santa Fe to be “almost certainly a fabrication” (Flores 1984:22). Regardless, as he was raised on the Red River in northeast Texas, it is reasonable to expect that he would be familiar with the area, whether he made it to Santa Fe or not. We are inclined to accept Brevel’s description of the fauna along the Red River.


His father was stationed at Poste des Cadodaquious, a French fort in Bowie County, northwest of Texarkana on the Red River—the exact location has not been found (Shipp 1881:665; Britton 2010). Below is Sibley’s description of his conversation with Brevel . The confl uence of the Blue and Red rivers lies about 160 km (100 mi) west of his home.

I asked him [Brevel] what animals were found in the Great prairies. He told me, that from Blue river, upwards, on both sides of Red river, there were innumerable quantities of wild horses, buffaloe, bears, wolves, elk, deer, foxes, sangliers or wild hogs, antelope, white hares, rabbits, &c. . . . (Sibley 1805a:71).

1772: East TexasAthanase de Mézières was a captain in the French army at Natchitoches, in the French colony of Louisiana, when it passed from French to Spanish rule in 1763. Discharged from the French army, he offered his service to the Spanish crown, and in late 1769 he was appointed lieutenant governor of Natchitoches (Chipman 2010). In 1772 he undertook an expedition, traveling across Texas from San Antonio to Natchitoches. In describing the part of the trip between Nacogdoches and the Sabine River, he made the following observation about the Province of Texas:

This very large province can compete with the most fertile and pro-ductive. It produces in abundance beans, maize, large and small stock, buffalo, deer, red deer,8 wild goats, turkeys, wild hogs, partridges, hares, rabbits, and other species of both quadrupeds and birds, which have served us in this long journey for recreations as well as for sustenance (de Mézières 1772:309).

1788: North Texas Early French explorer Pierre Vial—later known as Pedro Vial—was a remark-able pathfi nder in the Spanish Southwest. During the early 1780s, he lived among the Taovayas on the Red River before appearing in San Antonio in 1784.

8. According to Bryant and Maser (1985:1), red deer is one of the names used in the past for elk. Red deer (Cervus elaphus) and elk (Cervus canadensis) have a similar appearance. Off and on until recently, elk were considered by some, but not all, taxonomists to be part of the red deer species (see the appendix).


The Spanish governor selected him in 1786 to fi nd the most direct route between San Antonio and Santa Fe and undertook his trip in 1787. His diary, written in French, was delivered in 1788 to Louis de Blanc, de Mézières’ nephew and the commandant at Natchitoches (Loomis and Nasatir 1967: xv–xvi). De Blanc translated the diary and sent a report to the commandant of the Provincias In-ternas, or Interior Provinces. In the report, de Blanc made the following state-ments:

If for the royal service it should be desirable to send aid from here to New Mexico, it is indispensable to establish a post in the Taovaya villages with a good garrison and an experienced commandant to protect the road . . . He [Vial] also noted that the Taovayas raised corn, beans, squashes, melons, and sandillas [watermelons]; in the country, he said, were buffaloes, venados and ciervos, bears and puercos montes [wild boars]. It was a fi ne country he said with rivers, fi sh, and lots of water, and beaver and nutrias [otters] (in Loomis and Nasatir 1967:350).

In modern Spanish, venado and ciervo are used synonymously. However, in the 1739 edition of the Diccionario de la Lengua Castellana de la Real Academia Española (Dictionary of the Castilian Language of the Royal Spanish Academy), venado is defi ned as “Especie de ciervo parecido á él, casi del tamaño de un caballo. Cervus.” We translate this defi nition as follows: “A kind of deer similar to it, almost the size of a horse. Cervus.” Vial used the words ciervo and venado to distinguish two different animals—venado, almost the size of a horse, and ciervo, a deer. Vial was evidently referring to elk and deer. It is interesting to note that de Oyarzún placed elk in the vicinity of the Taovaya villages 28 years earlier.

1800: Central Texas In October 1800, Ellis P. Bean accompanied Philip Nolan on an expedition into Texas to round up wild horses. The commandant of the Spanish garrison at Nacogdoches evidently believed that Nolan was a fi libuster intent on freeing Texas from Spanish rule. On March 21, 1801, the Spanish attacked Nolan and his 27 men at their encampment in Hill or McClennan County, along a tributary of the Brazos River in the Waco-Hillsboro area. Nolan was killed by a bullet to the head during the battle (Jackson 2010a, 2010b). Bean, just 18 years old at


the time, was Nolan’s second-in-command. He survived the engagement, but was captured and imprisoned in Mexico (Weems 2010). In his memoirs, he recounts the following:

In about six days journey, we came to Trinity river and, crossing it, we found the big, open prairies of that country. . . . But we found that the buffalo had removed, and were getting so scarce, that, in three days after passing the spring, we were forced, in order to sustain life, to eat the fl esh of wild horses, which we found in great quantities. For about nine days we were compelled to eat horsefl esh, when we arrived at a river called the Brasos. Here we found elk and deer plenty, some buffalo, and wild horses by thousands (Bean 1856:405–406).

1803: North TexasDr. John Sibley, was the offi cial Indian Agent of Orleans Territory, a Senator in the Louisiana State Senate, a colonel of militia, and later a cattle farmer and cotton planter. He made an exploratory trip along the Red River in 1803. In March 1804, he began a correspondence with President Thomas Jefferson and in 1805 he wrote a description of the Indians of Louisiana that was contained in a report that Jefferson presented to the U.S. Senate (Ricky 1998:319; Connor 2010). He included the following comments about the Panis or Towiaches (probably the Taovayas) who lived along the middle section of the Red River as it forms the northern boundary of Texas. The Taovaya villages were located on the south bank of the river, under or very near today’s Lake Texoma.

PANIS or TOWIACHES. The French call them Panis, and the Span-iards Towiaches; the latter is the proper Indian name. They live on the south bank of the Red river. . . .

They have many horses and mules. They raise more corn, pumpkins, beans and tobacco, than they want for their own consumption; the surplusage they exchange with Hietans [Comanches] for buffaloe, rugs, horses and mules. . . . They have but few guns and very little ammunition; what they have they keep for war, and hunt with a bow. Their meat is principally buffaloe; seldom kill a deer, though they are so plenty they come into their villages and about their houses, like a domestic animal: elk, bear, wolves, antelope and wild hogs are


likewise plenty in their country, and white rabbits or hares, as well as the common rabbit: white bears sometimes come down amongst them, and wolves of all colours. The men generally go entirely naked, and the women nearly so, only wearing a small fl ap of a piece of skin (Sibley 1805b:46–47).

We should note the similarity between the Brevel sighting and the Sibley sighting, especially in the list of animals. Both reports were contained in letters written by Dr. Sibley and both purport to list the animals along the Red River. Brevel’s sighting, however, was from 1767 and Sibley’s from 1803. As the cor-respondent for both was Dr. Sibley, perhaps some similarity in phrasing should be expected. It should also be noted that Meriwether Lewis’ famous Travels of Capts. Lewis and Clarke (sic), published in London in 1809, contained a descrip-tion of the Panis or Towiaches, much of which was taken verbatim from Sibley’s letter, including the account of elk and the other animals (Lewis 1809:196–197).

1807: Province of TexasHaving recently completed the Louisiana Purchase, the U.S. government was interested in learning more about the Spanish provinces to the southwest of Louisiana. Lt. Zebulon Pike, an offi cer in the U.S. Army and a noted explorer for whom Pike’s Peak was named, was instructed to undertake an exploration of lands to the west and south of the U.S., which included the provinces of New Spain. During the course of his travels, he spent June of 1807 in Texas (Pike 1811:329–334). His description of the Province of Texas contains the following description of the wildlife:

Animals.—Buffalo, deer, elk, wild hogs, and wild horses; the latter of which are in such numbers as to afford supplies for all the savages who border on the province, the Spaniards, and vast droves for the other provinces of the United States, which fi nd their way out, not-withstanding the trade being contraband (Pike 1811:331).

Mexican Period

1829: Interior TexasAlarmed by the short-lived Fredonian Rebellion near Nacogdoches by some American colonists in 1826–1827, Mexican President Guadalupe Victoria sent


a Comisión de Límites (Boundary Commission) to Texas to assess the situation. Victoria designated 38-year-old General Manuel de Mier y Terán, probably one of the most qualifi ed men in Mexico, to command the expedition. Mier y Terán had fought against the Spanish in Mexico’s War of Independence, had been a member of Mexico’s fi rst congress, and had served as minister of war. He de-parted from Mexico City on November 10, 1827, and returned in 1829 (Jackson 2000:1–5; Henson 2010). He kept a diary of his travels:

SUNDAY, MARCH 1ST [1829]

Under way at 8:30, the 4 leagues’ journey to the site of Santa Rosa [in Cameron County near Brownsville]. . . . We have seen many deer in herds. Some of them are of the species verrendo [pronghorn], as they call them here. The species Elán9 [elk] of the genus ciervo they call Bura, and they are found in the interior of Tejas where the Co-manches live10 (de Mier y Terán 1829:157–158).

Republic of Texas

1836: Central TexasMary Austin Holley, a cousin of Stephen F. Austin, came to Texas in 1831 and decided to write a book that would encourage immigration. She reported in 1836 that “the moose is also found, but is confi ned to the frontier or far west” (Holley 1836:99). In the 1800s, the terms moose and elk were used interchange-ably to denote what we call elk today. At the time of Holley’s writing, the frontier of Texas was just west of San Antonio (Wallace and Hoebel 1986:12).

1840: South TexasGeorge Bonnell was a native New Yorker who came to Texas in 1836 to fi ght in the Texas Revolution. He moved to Austin in 1839 and went into the printing

9. Salacroux and Rodrigo (1837:247) defi ne the term elán as “El vapiti, elán ó ciervo del Canadá (C. canadensis)” (italics in original). In other words, wapiti or elk (authors’ translation). De Mier y Terán notes that the word bura was used to describe elán (elk). Today, in modern French, élan refers to red deer.

10. Comanches moved from the north into Central Texas in the early 1750s (Hämäläinen 2008:55–56) and by the time of de Mier y Terán’s visit could be found from the Panhandle through the Llano Estacado and the South Plains, and throughout the Hill Country to the Balcones Escarpment in the south.


business. He was selected to be the government printer for the Republic of Texas and founded the Texas Sentinel. In 1841, he joined the Texan Santa Fe Expedi-tion. He was captured by the Mexican army, imprisoned, and released in time to join the Mier Expedition in 1842. He was captured again and, this time, he was shot and killed (Kemp 2010). His book, Topographical Description of Texas, was published in 1840. In it he writes:

A few miles south of the Los Olmos commences a sandy barren ridge, known by the name of the Wild Horse Desert. . . . About two miles south of this desert, and in the edge of one of the most beautiful and fertile prairies in Texas is the celebrated salt lake [Sal del Rey, about 27 km (17 mi) north-northeast of Edinburg in Hidalgo County, about thirty miles from the Rio Grande]. . . . This lake is surrounded by the best stock raising country in the world, and the wild cattle, horses, deer, and elk resort to it in thousands (Bonnell 1840:110–111).11

1841: West TexasIn 1841 Arthur Ikin, a native of Great Britain who had been appointed consul in London by the Republic of Texas, visited Texas to deliver treaties negotiated between the Republic and Great Britain and between the Republic and the Netherlands (Sims 2010). Later that year he published a book about Texas in which he relates the following: “Among and beyond the mountains, moose, a species of antelope, and wild sheep, are said to be common” (Ikin 1841:41).12 In the 1800s moose was the preferred term among Britons to denote elk.

1841: Central TexasGeorge Wilkins Kendall was a co-founder of the New Orleans newspaper, The Picayune, and is generally regarded as the United States’ fi rst war correspondent. He was a pioneering promoter of the sheep industry in Texas, and Kendall

11. In 1841, William Kennedy, the Texas consul in London and later British consul in Galveston, published a book containing very similar language. He speaks of “the celebrated Salt Lake” and “the resort of horses and cattle, deer and elk.” Because Kennedy’s book was published the year after Bonnell’s and contains such similar language, we believe that both books should be counted as one report (Kennedy 1841:179–180).

12. Biologist Del Weniger believed that the mountains referred to by Ikin are “the heights of Hill Country” of Central Texas. It is not clear, however, that “wild sheep,” which we presume are bighorn sheep, ever inhabited the Hill Country. All three animals are present today in the Trans-Pecos, so we assign this sighting to West Texas (Weniger 1997:49).


County in the Hill Country was named for him. In 1841, he joined the Texan Santa Fe Expedition, initiated by Republic of Texas President Mirabeau Lamar to claim parts of northern New Mexico for the Republic and establish a new trade route to Santa Fe. The people of New Mexico wanted nothing to do with Texas, so upon their arrival in New Mexico, members of the expedition were captured by the Mexican army and imprisoned in Mexico. Upon his release, Kendall described his experiences in Narrative of the Texan Santa Fe Expedi-tion, which was published in 1844 and proved to be a best seller (Cutrer 2010).

The Texan Santa Fe Expedition left Austin on June 19, 1841, heading for the Red River. On July 14, they made camp half a mile from the Brazos River, probably in Bosque County, northwest of Waco:

The valley of the Brazos at this place abounded with every species of timber known in Texas; grapes, plums, and other fruit were found in profusion; trout and other fi sh were plentiful in the small creeks in the neighborhood, and the woods and prairies about us not only afforded excellent grazing for our cattle and horses, but teemed with every species of game—elk, deer, bears, wild turkeys, and, at the proper season, buffalo and mustang (Kendall 1844:102).

1842: South TexasIn December 1842, the Mier Expedition (5 captains and 308 soldiers) marched south along the Rio Grande from Laredo. The main force camped in today’s Starr County at a point on the east bank of the Rio Grande opposite Mier, two miles from the river on the Mexican side. In the battle for Mier, the Texans were defeated and many were captured. In February 1843, some of the prisoners escaped and were recaptured, and Santa Anna ordered that 1 in 10 be shot. The prisoners drew beans from a pot and those drawing black beans were executed. The white bean survivors were imprisoned in San Carlos Fortress in Perote, Veracruz, also known as Perote Prison. One of the surviving soldiers was William Stapp, a nephew of Major General Milton Stapp of Indiana. As a result of the efforts of his uncle, Stapp was released from prison in 1844. After his release, Stapp wrote a journal of his experiences. He was apparently well educated, as his book abounds in classical and literary references (Nance 2010).

Our whole force moved down the left bank of the Bravo [Rio Grande], bearing to the east of the settlements on the river. . . . A bright


December morning and a truant humour allured some comrades and myself to diverge from our line of march and try our skill in woodcraft. Besides the droves of mustangs and wild cattle that still roam in freedom over these desert plains, deer, elk, turkeys, and Mexican hogs, are found in abundance wherever the hunter’s enterprise may institute a search (Stapp 1845:27).

1845: Central TexasIn 1845 A. Suthron published his book, Prairiedom: Rambles and Scrambles in Texas or New Estrémadura. In it, he described his travels in Texas and, in particular, his visit to the Central Texas ranch of General Memucan Hunt.13 The following excerpt from Suthron’s book describes an area that appears to be located in today’s northwestern Milam County, some 30–50 km (20–30 mi) northeast of Georgetown. The San Andrés River—today known as the Little River— joins the San Gabriel River near Cameron, Texas, and fl ows into the Brazos from the west.

In truth, the whole district of country lying between the Trinity and Brassos, and the Brassos and Colorado, north of the San Antonio Road, is one of rare fertility and enchanting beauty. . . . The district embraced between the forks of San Andrés and San Gabriel is per-fectly enchanting. Gen. Hunt, late minister to the United States, &c., has a domain here of some twenty thousand acres [8,000 hectares], which he has selected for his country villa, and which well deserves to be called El Paradiso. This is the favorite haunt of the deer, elk, and buffalo. Extensive valleys of rich, arable, alluvial lands are found throughout this range, particularly on the water-courses (Suthron 1845:104–105, italics in original).

13. Hunt was an important Texas revolutionary who held the rank of major general in the Texas army, was appointed secretary of the navy during the days of the Republic, then commissioner to the United States. After annexation, he was a member of the fi rst Legislature and was later appointed a member of the U.S./Mexico Boundary Commission. He is said to have owned several landed estates or ranches (Neu 2010).


Early Statehood

Ca. 1849: Texas In 1849,14 Colonel Richard Dodge began his military career when he was posted to Fort Lincoln in Medina County, west of San Antonio (Dodge 1877:406). He was a well-known hunter who hunted throughout the western U.S. in what he called “the plains.” In 1877, he wrote a book about his life of hunting:

The range of the elk seems originally to have been commensurate with the territory of the United States, from the Atlantic to the Pacifi c, from Michigan to (Florida, I was going to say, but having no evidence of an elk ever having been seen in that State, I will substitute) Texas. They are now found on the plains, in greater or less numbers, from the British line on the north, to the Red River on the south, from the Missouri on the east, far beyond the plains through the Rocky Moun-tains to the Pacifi c coast (Dodge 1877:155).

1851: West TexasLegendary naturalist John James Audubon fi rst visited Texas in 1837 with his son John Woodhouse Aububon, who was also a naturalist. His son returned to Texas in 1845–1846 to gather specimens for his father’s pioneering book, The Viviparous Quadrupeds of North America. Audubon and co-author John Bachman wrote the following in 1851, the year of Audubon’s death.

It [the elk] is found on the western prairies, and ranges along the eastern sides of the mountains in Texas and New Mexico. It is also found in Oregon and California. Its most southern geographical range still remains undetermined (Audubon and Bachman 1851:94).

1853: TexasCaptain L. Sitgreaves, a topographical engineer in the U.S. Army, wrote a report of an expedition he made down the Zuñi and Colorado rivers, which was pub-lished in 1853. In it, he cataloged the wildlife he encountered along the way. In the quote below, he lists the different taxonomic classifi cations of elk that had been used up to that time:

14. Dodge does not date his sighting of elk in Texas, but we believe it most likely was very early in his military career, before the elk were extirpated.


ELAPHUS CANADENSIS, Ray.15—The American Elk.Cervus Canadensis, Ray Syn. Quad., p. 84.Cervus Strongyloceros, Schreber Saugt., vol. 2, p. 1074, pl. 247, fi g. G.Cervus Canadensis, Godman. Nat. Hist., vol. 2, 294.Elaphus Canadensis, Aud. and Bach. Quad N.A., vol. 2, p. 84, pl. 62.

I have only observed this animal in the Indian Territory, but it extends its range into Texas, New Mexico, and California (Sitgreaves 1853:56).

1868: North TexasThe Texas Almanac of 1868 reported:

In the north-west and at present unsettled portions of our State are still to be found, in the fall and winter, large numbers of the grandest and stateliest of all the four-footed game of this continent—the buffalo. Last winter they were abundant a short distance west of Fort Belknap, in Young County, and a party of hunters who went out in their pursuit brought into and sold in the market large quantities of both tongues and skins. Indigenous to the same region is to be found the black-tailed deer and elk, although neither are now abundant . . . . (Durham 1868:92).

Ca. 1880: West TexasAs we saw earlier, Vernon Bailey noted in 1905 that “there are no wild elk 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).

Physical EvidencePhysical evidence in the form of bones, antlers, and paleofeces (preserved ancient feces) suggests the presence of native elk in Texas. Such evidence has been found in North Texas, East Texas, and West Texas. The evidence we present is a comprehensive listing of reports published in the literature or available online (Table 2). The most complete database of archaeological and paleonto-logical fi nds in Texas is the online Texas Archeological Sites Atlas, which compiles the reports of all archaeological projects in the state, over 70,000 items to date. It is maintained by the Texas Historical Commission in coordination

15. What Sitgreaves refers to as Elaphus canadensis would today be classifi ed as Cervus canadensis.

18 Journal of Big Bend Studies 28 • Gill, Gill, Peel, and Vasquez T

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with the Texas Archeological Research Laboratory at The University of Texas at Austin (http://nueces.thc.state.tx.us/). FAUNMAP is an online archival in-teractive database documenting the Quaternary distribution of mammal species in the U.S. and is frequently used by archaeologists and wildlife biologists. However, it is incomplete with regard to Texas elk fi nds, listing only one example of the physical evidence of elk thus far found in the state (http://www.ucmp.berkeley.edu/faunmap/).

Elk BonesAlthough the bones found are single bones and not complete skeletons, they provide additional suggestive evidence of native elk. It should be noted that several reports in the Texas Archeological Sites Atlas describe bones found in archaeological excavations in Texas as “large mammal bones” or as “larger than deer.” One bone is described as “deer-bison.” A number of these bones may be elk, but since elk have been considered nonnative to Texas, archaeologists have been reluctant to assign such large bones to elk. Although the bones were found in Texas, it is possible, of course, that individual elk bones and antlers may have been transported from elsewhere by Native Americans.

West TexasIn 1935, during excavations in Williams Cave at the Adolphus Williams Ranch, now within Guadalupe Mountains National Park in Culberson County, Mary Youngman Ayer reported fi nding a bone fragment and a tooth fragment which she identifi ed as belonging to elk. It should be noted that other elk remains have been found in the Guadalupe Mountains just across the state line in New Mexico (Roney 1985:36). Elk would certainly have ranged throughout the Guadalupes without regard to today’s state borders. In her article, Ayer re-ported the following:

19. Cervus merriami Nelson, referred. Arizona Wapiti.Fragment of a molar (A.N.S. 14204). Proximal end of ulna (A.N.S. 14218)

Remarks: The molar is too small a fragment to identify with any certainty but it indicates a very large tooth typical of the Elk. The ulna is very large and broad, the articulation facets for the humerus and radius are typical of the Elk. It is entirely too large for any Mule


Deer and undoubtedly represents an immature Elk or Wapiti. . . . (Ayer 1936:612).

In 1932, Frank M. Setzler of the Smithsonian Institution excavated Sunny Glen Canyon Cave No. 1,16 located about four miles northwest of Alpine in the Big Bend. Setzler reported fi nding two unworked bones, stating, “One of these bones is an antelope (Antilocapra americana), and the other is an elk (Cervus canadensis) vertebra.” The elk vertebra was found at a depth of 0.9 m (3 ft), below all but 1 of the 42 human artifacts (a dart point) recovered during the excavation, which were at depths of 15 centimeters (6 in) to 0.76 m (2.5 ft). The depth of the bone at 0.9 m (3 ft) suggests that the elk died either before humans began using the cave or very early in the period of human occupation. It has not been dated (Setzler 1935:105; Setzler quoted in Prewitt 1970:36, Table 4).

East TexasIn a 1983 report of the Columbus Bend Project in Colorado County, East Texas, Jeff Homburg reported fi nding lithic fl akes, tested cobbles, split cobbles, bifaces, biface fragments, dart and arrow points, groundstone, hammerstone, fi re-cracked rock, mussel shell, deer bone, and a probable elk bone (Homburg 1983). At the recommendation of local informants who suggested a nearby site might be of some signifi cance, Jeff Keller and his colleagues excavated and encountered large amounts of primary stages of lithic debitage, fi re-cracked rocks, one elk tooth, scattered gastropods, freshwater mussels, groundstone implements, and numerous projectile points in local collections (Keller et al. 1983).

North TexasOn April 17, 1993, Russell Pfau (1994) found the distal end of an elk tibia (Mid-western State Collection of Fossil Vertebrates MWSU 12946). It was embedded in the bank of a small tributary of Pony Creek, which lies north-northeast of Seymour in Baylor County, about 55 km (35 mi) south of the Red River.17 The bone yielded a radiocarbon date of 295±50 B.P. (Beta Analytic, Inc., #62592). The calibrated date range is cal A.D. 1461–1668 and cal A.D. 1782–1797 (calibrated with OxCal 4.2.4, IntCal13 curve) (Ramsey 2001, 2016; Reimer et al. 2013).

16. Sunny Glen Canyon Cave is also known as Rock Pillar Cave, Indian Cave, Comanche Cave, and Indian Cave on Comanche Mountain.

17. Pfau reported it as the fi rst fi nd of an elk bone in Texas, unaware of earlier fi nds (Pfau 1994:1; R. Pfau, Tarleton State University, e-mail to Richardson Gill July 2, 2011).


In a 1994 unpublished archaeological report, Brian Shaffer reported recov-ering a proximal phalange18 of an elk from a garbage midden at the Spider Knoll site (41DT11), a Caddo archaeological site in Delta County. Shaffer found the bone 40 km (25 mi) south-southwest of Paris, Texas, and about 55 km (35 mi) south of the Red River. Based on six calibrated (1-sigma) radiocarbon samples of other artifacts, the midden ranges in age from A.D. 970–1430 (Shaffer et al. 1995:159).

Elk Antlers

East TexasIn 1931, A.T. Jackson excavated a billet—a hammer tool used in the manufac-ture of stone tools—from a midden at the Mrs. Emma Owens site in Anderson County, East Texas.19 The artifact was originally thought to be a deer antler, but after consulting with Dr. Ernest Lundelius, a highly respected vertebrate pale-ontologist at The University of Texas at Austin, it was reassessed as having been made from an elk antler (Jodry 1982). It should be pointed out, however, that as elk antler tools were easily transportable as items of long-distance trade, we do not know if the billet was made from the antler of a native Texas elk or an elk from some other region. Other artifacts at the site have been dated to the historic Allen phase of Caddo culture, dating from A.D. 1650–1800.

North TexasIn the March 28, 1853, issue of the Clarksville Standard, Charles DeMorse—the newspaper’s longtime owner and editor—reported fi nding a large pair of antlers near Fort Worth. “At Worth, we found in the line of curiosities a wild cat, a pet bear, some stone coal from Belknap, and an immense pair of Deer’s antlers picked up on the Grand Prairie [Dallas County], probably four feet in length [1.2 m]” (Weniger 1997:49; Wallace 2010). We know from de Oyarzún’s account (1759:119) that he found large buro (elk) antlers “in the countryside” northwest of Fort Worth—one that was “nearly two varas [1.7 m, 5.5 ft] long.” When elk antlers are found lying on the ground, it suggests that the antlers were shed by elk living in the vicinity.

18. Phalange is another term for phalanx.19. Details for 41AN21 can be found in the Texas Archeological Sites Atlas accessible from

http://atlas.thc.state.tx.us/.


Elk PaleofecesElk paleofeces are the most direct evidence of a resident elk, except for a full skeleton. They are unlikely to have been transported from another location by humans or animals. They were most likely deposited where found. Elk feces are distinctive and can be distinguished from deer pellets (Elbroch 2003:232–235).

In the High Sloth Caves in Guadalupe Mountains National Park of the Trans-Pecos region of Texas, Thomas Van Devender and his colleagues (1977:107–108) unearthed a number of paleofeces, particularly sloth dung.20 He wrote, “The sloth dung in Cave C-08 is associated with fecal pellets of a large artiodactyl (possibly Cervus merriami, Merriam’s elk) which have been dated to 11,760±610 B.P. (Laboratory of Isotope Geochemistry at the University of Arizona, A-1522).”

21 The calibrated date range is cal 13,831–10,615 B.C., at the end of the Pleisto-cene (calibrated at a 95.4 percent confi dence level with OxCal 4.2.4, IntCal13 curve) (Ramsey 2001, 2016; Reimer et al. 2013).

Rock Art EvidenceNative Americans left prehistoric artistic evidence of the presence of elk in Texas through their rock art, consisting of painted pictographs and a carved petroglyph of animals with elk-like antlers (Table 2). The evidence presented in this paper is the result of a comprehensive online search of photos of rock art in Texas and an evaluation of the substantial collection of rock art photos at the Center for Big Bend Studies of Sul Ross State University.

PictographsWhen studying pictographs of animals with antlers, it is sometimes diffi cult to determine whether the images are of mule deer, white-tailed deer, or elk. In the past, some archaeologists (e.g., Smith 1916) used the size of the body of the animal depicted to determine whether the fi gure represented deer or elk. We propose that a more defi nitive method of distinguishing between the species should be based on the antlers, which are more distinctive than body size.

Mule DeerMule deer antlers grow forward from their base (i.e., toward the front of the animal) and have a distinctive dichotomous branching pattern in which the tines

20. Sloths are now extinct in Texas.21. The laboratory number for this sample is listed as 1522 in the text in Van Devender et al.

1977, page 107, but as 1533 in Table 1 on page 108.


of the antlers fork and the forks fork (Fig. 2a). There are pictographs that dem-onstrate the same branching pattern in the antlers. An example is shown in Figure 2b, from Presidio County in the Trans-Pecos region, which we identify as mule deer.

In their approach to the identifi cation of mule deer and elk in rock art, ar-chaeologists at the Center for Big Bend Studies advocate using head and neck morphologies together with the antler branching pattern. They base this approach on the assumption that some prehistoric artists may have focused on depicting the antlers correctly while others may have focused on body morphologies. The Center for Big Bend Studies has concluded that Figure 2b represents an elk based on all three criteria—antlers, head, and neck—but most importantly, the head and neck morphologies (Andy Cloud, e-mail to Richardson Gill October 20, 2016). However, we believe that the head and neck morphologies of the pictograph in Figure 2b are consistent with those of mule deer (Fig. 2a); and

Figure 2a. Mule deer (Odocoileus hemio-nus). Note the dichotomous branching of the antlers in which the tines fork and the forks fork. Photo courtesy of Rocky Moun-tain National Park.

Figure 2b. Postulated mule deer pictograph from the Sierra Vieja, Presidio County. Note the dichotomous branching of the antlers and the tines that fork. Photo courtesy of the Center for Big Bend Studies.


we give more importance to the deliberately portrayed dichotomous branching pattern of the antlers in identifying the pictograph as a mule deer.

White-Tailed DeerWhite-tailed deer can often be distinguished in the rock art as well. White-tailed antlers grow forward of their base (i.e., toward the front of the animal) and curve inward as they grow up (Fig. 3a). The tines rise vertically from the main beam. White-tailed deer raise their tails when they run; in contrast, elk do not. The antlers in the pictograph from Terrell County in the Trans-Pecos region (Fig. 3b), have points that rise vertically from the main beam without dichoto-mous branching; the horns curve inward, and are not carried down the back. The curved, standing tail is also characteristic of white-tailed deer.

ElkThe branching pattern in elk antlers, on the other hand, is distinctly different from that in mule deer and white-tailed deer (Fig. 4a). They generally have

Figure 3a. White-tailed deer (Odocoileus virginianus). Note the simple branching of the antlers, which grow forward of their base and curve inward as they grow up. Photo adapted from and courtesy of In-formed Farmers.

Figure 3b. Postulated white-tailed deer pictograph from Terrell County, which shows simple branching with inward-curving antlers growing above the head. Note the raised tail, which is character-istic of running white-tails. Photo by Reeda Peel.


pronounced brow tines and a long main beam that grows above the head and behind the base (i.e., toward the back of the animal) with a slight inward curve. The tines rise more or less perpendicularly from the main beam and they nor-mally do not fork. Occasionally, a forked tine can be found, but it is not a true dichotomous branching pattern.

The famous Red Elk pictograph (Fig. 4b) is from the Lower Pecos Can-yonlands on the eastern edge of the Trans-Pecos region in Val Verde County. It is in the Red Monochrome style, which dates from A.D. 1000–1600.22 In the pictograph, each antler has a long main beam with a slight inward curve from which the tines rise more or less perpendicularly. Brow tines are also visible.

It is interesting to note that some archaeologists have interpreted the rising, curving line visible near the rear end (i.e., right side) of the Red Elk to be a tail. Because raised tails are a characteristic of white-tailed deer—but not of elk—those archaeologists have identifi ed this pictograph as a deer. A close examina-tion, however, shows that the supposed “tail” does not connect to the body. If the arc of the body were continued up, it would pass to the left of the curved line. The line, therefore, is neither attached to nor a part of the body. The Red Elk was painted over older rock art, and the curved line appears to be related to the older lines to the right of the body—not to the body of the elk.

22. The dates for pictographs are estimated by the Rock Art Foundation. For details, visit the Rock Art Foundation at http://www.rockart.org/explore/style.cfm?view=red-monochrome.

Figure 4a. Male elk (Cervus canadensis). The antlers grow to the rear of the base and the tines are nearly perpendicular to the main beams, which curve inward. Note the pronounced brow tines. Photo adapted from http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/9d/Rocky-mountain-elk.jpg.

Figure 4b. Postulated elk pictograph, the famous Red Elk, Red Monochrome style from the Lower Pecos Canyonlands, Val Verde County. The tines are nearly per-pendicular to the main beams and do not fork. Note the brow tines. Photo adapted from Jim Zintgraff, courtesy of the Witte Museum, San Antonio, Texas.


In a 3,000–4,500-year-old (2500–1000 B.C.) Pecos River style pictograph from the Lower Pecos Canyon (Fig. 5), 23 we see the same pattern—a long beam rising above the base with straight, rising tines. Elk characteristically have brow tines, which also appear to be present. The body does not have a raised tail, another characteristic of elk.

PetroglyphIn 1994, State Photographer of Texas Wyman Meinzer photo-graphed a petroglyph of an elk from Dickens County in the South Plains east of Lubbock (Meinzer, e-mail to R. Gill and personal communication October 2016) (Fig. 6). The antlers depicted grow toward the back of the animal, which is characteristic of elk. The petroglyph, however, has not been dated to establish its age and, therefore, could have been carved more recently.

Are Elk a Native Texas Species?The historical and archaeological evidence presented herein leads us to conclude with confi dence that native populations of elk were present throughout Texas prior to 1900. The question we are left with is whether these native elk were the same species or subspecies as the free-ranging elk in Texas today. This is an important distinction because if they were the same, then today’s Texas elk are not an exotic species—rather, they are a native species.

In 1902, Edward W. Nelson proposed what he called a “new species of elk” from Arizona that he named Merriam’s elk, Cervus merriami. Vernon Bailey then proposed in 1905 that the native elk of Texas were Merriam’s elk. Other researchers later suggested that they were not a different species, but might be a subspecies.

23. For details, visit the Rock Art Foundation at http://www.rockart.org/explore/style.cfm?view=pecos-river.

Figure 5. Postulated elk pictograph, 3,000–4,500-year-old (2500–1000 B.C.) Pecos River style from the Lower Pecos Canyon, Val Verde County. The antlers are shown growing to the rear of the base; the tines are nearly perpen-dicular to the long main beams and do not fork. Note the pronounced brow tines. Photo by Reeda Peel.


Today, however, leading cervid taxonomists discount the existence of a separate species or subspecies of elk known as Merriam’s elk. They believe that the elk in and east of the Rocky Mountains were not only the same species, but the same subspecies. In other words, there never was a Merriam’s elk. DNA research indicates that today’s free-ranging elk in the Davis and Glass mountains are genetically indistinguishable from the elk in the Lincoln National Forest of New Mexico. They are the descendants of elk that naturally migrated through the Sacramento, Guadalupe, Delaware, and Davis mountains to recolonize areas of their former native range in the Trans-Pecos (Dunn 2016).

The free-ranging elk that reside in the Davis and Glass mountains today are the same species and subspecies as the elk that were present before their extirpa-tion in the nineteenth century—Cervus canadensis canadensis. See the appendix

Figure 6. Postulated elk petroglyph from a ranch in Dickens County. Photo courtesy of Wyman Meinzer.

29Are Elk Native to Texas? Historical and Archaeological EvidenceT

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for a more complete discussion of taxonomic, morphologic, and DNA studies that support this claim.

Summary and ConclusionsBetween 1600 and 1905 we fi nd multiple written accounts of elk in Texas, both fi rsthand eyewitness accounts and secondhand reports. Beginning with Gover-nor Juan de Oñate’s sighting in the Panhandle in 1601, there are reports of elk along the Red River in North Texas, sightings of elk along and near the Brazos River in Central Texas, near Nacogdoches in East Texas, near the Rio Grande in South Texas, and in the mountains of West Texas. The geographic distribution of the reports is widespread across the state (see Table 1). After ca. 1880 there are no additional eyewitness sightings or reports that we have found.

As for physical evidence, elk bones have been found south of the Red River in North Texas, in the Guadalupe Mountains, and in the Big Bend region of West Texas. A probable elk bone and elk tooth were found near Columbus in East Texas; an elk hammer tool, or billet, was also found in East Texas; an elk tooth fragment was found in the Guadalupe Mountains; an elk vertebra was found just outside Alpine in Brewster County in the Big Bend; elk antlers were found lying on the ground in North Texas; and probable elk paleofeces were found in a cave in West Texas.

Among the reports in the Texas Archeological Sites Atlas are mentions of unidentifi ed, large mammal bones, described as “large mammals,” as “larger than deer,” or as “deer-bison.” These bones could be reexamined in light of the historical evidence presented in this paper to see if they are possibly elk bones, since elk have been thought to be nonnative.

Other physical evidence can be found in prehistoric pictographs and a petroglyph. The interpretation of rock art, however, is subjective. It is possible, although we believe unlikely, that the rock art we have identifi ed as elk could have been intended to be images of deer. It is also possible that, although the pictographs of elk are located in Texas, the artists saw elk in other states then traveled to the Trans-Pecos and painted the images. Other archaeologists have used the size of the body or the head and neck morphologies as the principal criteria in determining whether a pictograph represents a deer or an elk. We propose, however, that the shape of the antlers is a more accurate indicator, even when the size of the body or other morphological characteristics as prin-cipal criteria may be incongruous. Using our approach, we conclude that the antlers shown in the pictographs in Figures 4b and 5 and the petroglyph in


Figure 7 above are elk antlers and the images represent elk. Although the rock art is not in and of itself conclusive evidence of prehistoric elk, we believe it is an important part of the overall body of evidence and, if accepted, establishes the prehistoric antiquity of native elk sightings in Texas.

The fi nal issues to be resolved are whether or not the elk ranging free in Texas today are an exotic, nonnative species or subspecies and whether or not they are genetically indistinguishable from the elk that inhabited the state before 1900. There has been no study of purported Merriam’s elk morphology that establishes that there ever was a separate species or subspecies that could be called Merriam’s elk. There have not been any DNA studies that demonstrate suffi cient genetic differences between purported Merriam’s elk and the other elk to which they were compared to be evidence of subspeciation. A number of leading authorities in cervid taxonomy have expressed their disagreement with the purported existence of Merriam’s elk. A DNA study of the resident elk in the Davis and Glass mountains today has determined they are genetically in-distinguishable from the native elk of the Lincoln National Forest of New Mexico, just north of the Texas border. Although there have been releases of imported elk made by ranchers and by Texas Parks and Wildlife Department in the past, the genetic makeup of the free-ranging elk in the Davis and Glass mountains of the Trans-Pecos today is the result of the natural migrations of elk from New Mexico through the Sacramento, Guadalupe, Delaware, and Davis mountains. (See the appendix for a more complete discussion of elk morphol-ogy, DNA, and taxonomy.)

Sport hunting, market hunting, and agricultural encroachment of their prairie habitat took a toll on elk in the state (Whitehead 1972:40; Nowak 1999:1113). By 1905, if not decades before, there were no native elk left anywhere in Texas (Bailey 1905:60). The body of evidence presented in this paper, consisting of eyewitness accounts; historical reports; the physical evidence of bones, antlers, and paleofeces; and prehistoric rock art clearly demonstrates that elk were native to Texas before being extirpated in the nineteenth century. The genetic evidence indicates they were the same species—and even the same subspecies—as those present today, Cervus canadensis canadensis.

AcknowledgmentsMr. Andy Cloud did extensive editing and proofreading of the paper and made important suggestions for improvement. We would like to acknowledge and thank Dr. Russell Pfau, Dr. Valerius Geist, Dr. Colin Groves, Dr. David Ribble,


and Dr. Dale Toweill for reviewing the manuscript and providing extensive comments, suggestions, articles, and additional information to us. Dr. Lee Lyman reviewed the article, made numerous helpful suggestions, and spent hours on the phone discussing improvements. Dr. Richard E.W. Adams read the manuscript and made useful comments. We learned much from Dr. Alfred Gardner with respect to elk bones and from Dr. Solveig Turpin about Texas rock art. We are also grateful for the suggestions of Dr. Montague Whiting. Mr. John Sherman found an eyewitness sighting of elk for us. Drs. Don Wilson, Frederick Stangl, Clark Wernecke, John Seebach, Paul Carlson, Warren Ballard, Ernest Lundelius, James Heffelfi nger, and Elizabeth Cary Mungall provided us with articles, data, and bibliographic references. Mr. Wyman Meinzer kindly provided us with a photograph he took of a petroglyph. We appreciate our discussions with Drs. Brian Shaffer, Timothy Perttula, Lee Bement, Eric Hell-gren, William Keel, and Messrs. Mark Walters, Dale Repnow, and Tom Toman. We appreciate the help of Ashley Adair and the staff of the Austin History Center; Sue Varvil at the British Deer Society; Peggy Scott at the San Diego Zoo; and the staffs of the Trinity University, The University of Texas at San Antonio, and the San Antonio Public Library. Susan Chisholm and Kay Plavi-dal have provided essential support in copy editing, proofreading, fact-check-ing, and making numerous constructive suggestions for improvement. Finally, we greatly appreciate the time taken and the careful comments made by the anonymous reviewers. The paper is substantially improved because of the assistance of each of these individuals.


AppendixWe have presented historical accounts and physical evidence indicating that native populations of elk were present throughout much of Texas prior to 1900. The next question, then, is whether these native elk were the same species or subspecies as the free-ranging elk present in Texas today. In this appendix, we discuss taxonomic, morphological, and DNA studies that lead us to conclude with confi dence that today’s free-ranging elk are not only the same species, but the same subspecies, as the native elk that were extirpated in the 1800s.

TaxonomyThe determination of a subspecies rests in part on genetic differences coupled with geographic isolation. Whether or not there was ever a Merriam’s elk in Texas depends on the resolution of two questions:

1. Did Merriam’s elk ever exist as a separate species or subspecies or was it an ecotype whose purported larger body and antler size were environ-mentally determined?

2. Was the population of elk in West Texas genetically isolated from the vast gene pool of elk in and east of the Rocky Mountains?

Up through the nineteenth century, early taxonomists classifi ed elk under many different names. By the turn of the twentieth century, however, North American elk were generally classifi ed as Cervus canadensis (Lydekker 1901:51; Anthony 1917:2). Worldwide, the number of species of elk and red deer prolif-erated. Bryant and Maser (1985:6), listed 15 species of Cervus in Europe, Asia, and North America. In a 1934 paper, however, Edgar Barclay studied what he called maral deer from the Caucasus and found close similarities between them and North American elk. He also believed that some maral deer characteristics were similar to European red deer. Barclay concluded that his maral deer was an intergradation between red deer and elk, so he proposed that most European, Asiatic, and North American red deer and elk were conspecifi c; in other words, they belonged to the same species Cervus elaphus (Barclay 1934). Barclay’s hypothesis was slow to be adopted. The fi rst apparent acceptance by taxonomists was by J.R. Ellerman and T.C.R. Morrison-Scott in 1951 (p. 367), followed by K.K. Flerov in 1952 (pp. 175–178).24 In 1959, however, Raymond Hall and Keith

24. For examples of authorities that accepted the unifi cation and classifi ed North American elk as C. elaphus, see Ellerman and Morrison-Scott 1951:367; Flerov 1952:175–178; Heptner et al. 1961:190; Findley et al. 1975:327; Mayer et al. 1982:320; Corbet and Hill 1986:128;


Kelson (1959:1000), writing in The Mammals of North America, specifi cally rejected the intergradation hypothesis. “In the absence of intergradation between C. elaphus and C. canadensis, we treat the two as distinct.”25 Over time, the unifi cation was accepted by other, but not all, taxonomists without much discus-sion. Although some researchers did not agree with the unifi cation of red deer and elk, the notion became entrenched and accepted as true by many taxonomists and wildlife biologists. Today, however, the unifi cation of elk and red deer is no longer accepted. The leading cervid taxonomists today classify North American and eastern Siberian elk as Cervus canadensis (Geist 2007:27; Groves and Grubb 2011:99; Mattioli 2011:423; Geist, e-mail to Richardson Gill July 26, 2011).

North American elk have been divided in the past into six subspecies, of which two have supposedly become extinct and four supposedly survive. The supposedly extinct North American subspecies are Merriam’s elk (C. canadensis merriami) and Eastern elk (C. c. canadensis). The four suppos-edly surviving subspecies are Roosevelt elk (C. c. roosevelti), Tule elk (C. c. nannodes), Manitoban elk (C. c. manitobensis), and Rocky Mountain elk (C. c. nelsoni).26 We have made a comprehensive literature search of recent DNA analyses of elk to determine whether DNA studies have supported the traditional subspecies designations in North America. Recent studies have concluded there are either one,27 two,28 or three29 subspecies present in North America today. Those studies that propose two subspecies in North America identifi ed Tule elk in California as a separate subspecies. Those that propose

Hoffmeister 1986:534; Grubb 1993:387, 2005:662; Geist 1998:170–185; Nowak 1999:1110, 1113; and Kays and Wilson 2009:94.

25. For examples of authorities that did not accept the unifi cation and classifi ed North American elk as C. canadensis, see Murie 1951:54; Miller and Kellogg 1955:795; Hall and Kelson 1959:1000; Cockrum 1960:250; Sanderson 1967:251; Walker et al. 1968:1389; Whitehead 1972:38–44; Gunderson 1976:256, 341; Clutton-Brock et al. 1982:307; McDonald 1984:528; Putman 1988:13; Trense 1989:108–109, 150, 343; Frey 2004:10, 25; Geist 2007:27; Groves and Grubb 2011:99; and Mattioli 2011:351.

26. See, for example, Hall and Kelson 1959:1000–1003; Hall 1981:1084–1087; Bryant and Maser 1985:24; Dolan 1988:13–34; and O’Gara 2002:45–48.

27. For examples of authorities proposing one single subspecies in North America, see Cronin 1992:70, 80; Denome 1998:1, 10; Geist 1998:183, 214; 2007:27; Ludt et al. 2004:1073; and Mattioli 2011:423. Additionally, Polziehn et al. 2000:1561 suggest that elk were once one continuous distribution in the past before the arrival of settlers.

28. For examples of authorities proposing two subspecies, see Groves and Grubb 1987:49–50; O’Gara 2002:58–60, 62; and Williams et al. 2004:1, 117.

29. For examples of authorities proposing three subspecies, see Polziehn et al. 1998:1005, 1009; Polziehn 2000:99, 105; Polziehn et al. 2000:1562; Meredith et al. 2007:807; and Broughton et al. 2013:497.


three subspecies in North America identifi ed Tule elk in California and Roosevelt or Olympic elk in the Pacifi c Northwest and British Columbia as separate subspecies. The one consistent theme among all the studies cited is that there is no evidence to support a genetic differentiation between the montane Rocky Mountain elk and the plains Manitoban elk. There would, therefore, be little likelihood that the supposedly extinct Eastern elk would have been a separate subspecies either, as there was no natural barrier to separate the Eastern elk population from the plains population. According to population biologist Renee Polziehn and her colleagues, “A panmictic or clinal distribution was suggested for eastern, Manitoban, and Rocky Moun-tain wapiti” (Polziehn et al. 1998:1005). In other words, the vast elk popu-lation that lived in the Rocky Mountains and areas to the east comprised one subspecies.

Other researchers have identifi ed only one species and subspecies of elk in all of North America. For example, noted wildlife biologist and taxonomist Valerius Geist, author of the encyclopedic work, Deer of the World: Their Evolution, Behaviour, and Ecology, concluded, “The one gene difference between Olympic [Roosevelt] elk and Rocky Mountain elk is taxonomically trivial. That’s why there is only one subspecies of elk in North America and the re-gional difference, primarily in body size and environmentally affected growth pattern of antlers, are ecotypic” (Geist 2007:27, emphasis in the original). In other words, the differences are the result of their environment and not their genes. Geist further elaborated, “I regard all North American elk to be the same subspecies, C. canadensis canadensis Erxleben 1777, while recognizing that there are distinct regional ecotypes (Rocky Mountain, Tule, Olympic, etc.) as well as genetically recognizable populations” (Geist, e-mail to Richardson Gill, July 26, 2011; 1998:183, 214). Another example comes from the encyclopedic, nine-volume Handbook of the Mammals of the World, Volume 2, Hoofed Mammals where cervid taxonomist Stefano Mattioli (2011:423) has classifi ed only one subspecies of elk in all of North America, C. canadensis canadensis.

Merriam’s Elk

Formal classifi cations of deer have been inadequate, yet through repetition have become regarded as unquestionable primary sources of knowledge (Groves and Grubb 1987:22).


Colin Groves’ and Peter Grubb’s observation is particularly apt with regard to the taxonomy and history of elk in Texas. The fl awed identifi cation of a new species of elk was never reexamined and reanalyzed and a basic misunderstand-ing of a historical statement was never questioned. As a result, through repeti-tion for over 100 years, they became, as Groves and Grubb put it, “unquestion-able primary sources of knowledge.” We will now reexamine both.

The classifi cation of a now extinct species or subspecies of elk, known as Merriam’s elk and alternately classifi ed as C. merriami, C. elaphus merriami, and C. canadensis merriami, which inhabited Arizona, New Mexico, and the Guadalupe Mountains in Texas, has been widely accepted since the early twen-tieth century.30 But was there ever suffi cient, scientifi c evidence presented to substantiate Merriam’s elk as a separate species or subspecies?

MorphologyIn 1902 when Edward W. Nelson described his “new species of elk,” which he called Cervus merriami or Merriam’s elk, he based his conclusion on the ex-amination of the skull of one very old bull held by the American Museum of Natural History, number 16211, which he compared to three other skulls, as can be seen in Table 3. He compared the antlers belonging to skull number 16211 to three sets of antlers from other specimens. In addition, he examined a skin from the same elk at the museum for color and read his own previous notes concerning another skin that he had collected and sent to the museum 15 years earlier.31 It was certainly not a comprehensive study and would be unacceptable by today’s standards of wildlife biology and taxonomy. Nevertheless, he deter-mined Merriam’s elk was a separate species because he believed the skull of the old bull was generally larger than the average of the other three elk skulls he examined and the skin was a slightly different color (Nelson 1902).

However, Nelson’s claim does not stand up to modern statistical analysis. Nelson took nine different cranial measurements for each of the four skulls. For six of the nine measurements, the values for the supposed Merriam’s skull fall within the range of values for the other skulls. Nelson’s merriami skull is the largest in only three measurements. In two of those measurements, however,

30. See, for example, Murie 1951:54; Hall and Kelson 1959:1002; Cockrum 1960:250; Hall 1981:1085; Bryant and Maser 1985:30; Hoffmeister 1986:537; and O’Gara 2002:45. Findley et al. (1975:327) believed Merriam’s elk to be a geographic race of C. elaphus.

31. The museum had misplaced the skin that Nelson sent 15 years earlier. Unable to examine the skin, he had to rely upon his notes.


Tab

le 3

C

om

par

ativ

e M

easu

rem

ents

of

Cer

vus

mer

riam

i, C

ervu

s ro

ose

velt

i, a

nd C

ervu

s ca

nad

ensi

s

Co

mp

ara

tiv

e S

ku

ll

Me

asu

rem

en

ts.

(All

ad

ult

ma

les.)

Occiput to Front

of Premaxillæ

Palatal Length

Length of Nasals

Greatest Breadth

of Nasals

Greatest Orbital

Breadth

Greatest Breadth

across Premaxillæ

Breadth across

Parietals

Zygomatic Breadth

Breadth below

Lachrymal Fossæ.

Cer

vus

mer

riam

i, ne

ar

Spr

inge

rvill

e, A

Z., N

o. 1

6211

Am

. M

us. N

at. H

isto

ry (T

opot

ype)

49

8 28

8 18

3 83

19

4 9

9

168

20

3

15

7

Cer

vus

roos

evel

ti, O

lym

pic

Mts

., W

ashi

ngto

n, N

o. 9

1579

U.S

.N.M

., B

iolo

gica

l Sur

vey.

(Typ

e)

51

6

29

7

19

2

84

1

95

98

16

3 19

0 15

0

Cer

vus

cana

dens

is, F

t. B

erth

old,

N

D.,

No.

291

0 U

.S.N

.M.

500

288

172

70

185

89

17

0

186

156

Cer

vus

cana

dens

is, R

epub

lican

Fo

rk, N

E.,

No.

494

02 U

.S.N

.M.

492

292

172

65

174

86

156

180

150

Nel

son'

s ta

ble

of c

ompa

rativ

e sk

ull m

easu

rem

ents

. Bol

d nu

mbe

rs in

dica

te t

he la

rges

t va

lue

for

each

mea

sure

men

t.

U.S

.N.M

. sta

nds

for

the

Uni

ted

Sta

tes

Nat

iona

l Mus

eum

, tod

ay k

now

n as

the

Nat

iona

l Mus

eum

of

Nat

ural

His

tory

, S

mith

soni

an In

stitu

tion

(aft

er N

elso

n 19

02:1

1, u

nits

not

giv

en b

ut u

ndou

bted

ly m

illim

eter

s).


it is only 1 millimeter larger than the next largest measurement, an insignifi cant difference. In only one value, the zygomatic breadth, is it distinguishably larger—by 7 percent. According to noted taxonomist and bioanthropologist Colin Groves, “In many large ungulates [hoofed animals], especially in males with their large armaments, the zygomatic arches become more robust, hence wider, with age” (Groves, e-mail to Richardson Gill, January 16, 2011). Skull number 16211 was from an old bull whose teeth were worn to the gum line (Carmony et al. 2010:73). It is to be expected that the zygomatic arch would be larger than that of other younger bulls. Nelson’s own data do not support a signifi cant difference between his merriami skull and the other skulls, cer-tainly not a difference which would justify a species or subspecies designation.

Dr. Jerome Keating, the Peter T. Flawn Professor and former chairman of the Department of Management Science and Statistics at The University of Texas at San Antonio, analyzed Nelson’s data using modern, accepted multi-variate statistical techniques and concluded that while the data set is very small and cannot provide a defi nitive answer, the analysis showed all the skulls to be from one species (Keating two e-mails to Richardson Gill, January 23, 2013, and June 9, 2016; personal communication June 7, 2016). In other words, con-trary to his claim, in strict statistical terms, Nelson’s own measurements do not support the existence of a separate subspecies, much less a separate species. Nelson presented evidence that skull number 16211 came from a large, old bull, not a separate species or subspecies.

More recently, craniometry and antler measurements on small numbers of specimens have been discredited as the sole method of establishing new species or subspecies among elk (Geist 1998:182; O’Gara 2002:7–8). There is too much natural variation in a population for measurements on a small set of individuals, much less one individual, to reach meaningful conclusions about the population as a whole. In addition to Nelson’s own data not showing meaningful differ-ences in the morphology of the skulls he examined, other more recent morpho-logical studies have failed to support the idea of Merriam’s elk.

• Donald Hutton carried out an analysis of 297 skulls, or portions thereof, from several locations within the range of the supposed Rocky Mountain (C. c. nelsoni) subspecies and the supposed Manitoba (C. c. manitoben-sis) subspecies of elk. He concluded that “the validity of the subspecies nelsoni, manitobensis, and merriami, as differentiated from the typical subspecies canadensis, is questionable” (Hutton 1972:12, 68).


• According to Arizona wildlife biologists Neil Carmony, David Brown, and Jim Heffelfi nger, “The skull measurements of Merriam’s elk fall within the range of normal variation of other elk subspecies. In short, there has not been, and cannot now be, an adequate evaluation and com-parison of Arizona’s native elk to other subspecies” (Carmony et al. 2010:73).

DNACarmony, Brown, and Heffelfi nger (2010:73–74) also reported on DNA studies that compared two supposed Merriam’s elk skulls to other purported elk subspecies. The supposed Merriam’s elk differed from the others by 3 to 6 base pairs, whereas the other skulls differed among themselves by 0 to 4 base pairs (bp). Taxonomist Bart O’Gara (2002:13) has stated that the minimum number of samples required for reliable results is at least 20. David Ribble, the chairman of the Department of Biology at Trinity University in San Antonio, believed that, “assuming there is no sequencing error (an issue with old specimen amplifi cation), an average of 3–6 bp differences in a small portion of mtDNA (111 bp) is not convincing evidence of subspecies dif-ferentiation. Given the high rate of mutation in mtDNA, this difference would not be surprising for a species with a large geographic range” (David Ribble, e-mail to Richardson Gill, January 28, 2012). The genetic information pro-vided by Carmony and his colleagues at this point is insuffi cient to make any determination of whether the supposed Merriam’s elk represented a subspe-cies, an ecotype, or neither. It is not enough information; there are not enough base pair differences to make any kind of decision. Carmony and his col-leagues cautioned that the results they reported, “Although interesting, one has to keep in mind the Merriam’s elk sample was only represented by two male individuals collected 100 years ago. Since gene-pools change over time, it is diffi cult to say if the results would be the same if the analysis used a large number of recent samples to compare subspecies” (Carmony et al. 2010:73–74). The DNA studies, then, have failed to support the existence of Merriam’s elk.

As we have seen, neither recent morphological studies nor modern DNA studies support the existence of Merriam’s elk. As a result, modern cervid tax-onomists today discount the existence of Merriam’s elk as either a separate species or a separate subspecies of North American elk. Supporting statements from researchers on this topic are listed below.


• With regard to whether or not Merriam’s elk is a separate species as claimed by Nelson and Bailey, Geist (author of Deer of the World: Their Evolution, Behaviour, and Ecology) stated, “To consider Merriam’s elk a different species is complete insanity” (Valerius Geist, e-mail to Rich-ardson Gill, November 17, 2011, emphasis in original).

• With regard to whether or not Merriam’s elk existed as a separate subspe-cies, taxonomist Bart O’Gara felt the idea “That elk were, indeed, iso-lated in the mountains of Arizona, New Mexico, Texas, and Northwest-ern Chihuahua—leading to speciation or subspeciation—seems open to question” (O’Gara 2002:56).

• Christine Schonewald, formerly a scientist with the U.S. Department of the Interior and adjunct professor at the University of California, Davis, wrote, “During professional consultation with the eastern and southwest-ern park and forest managers the author became aware of additional information concerning C. e. merriami and C. e. canadensis. The valid-ity appears doubtful for at least two subspecies C. e. canadensis and C. e. merriami.”32 She has suggested that the supposed Merriam’s elk was a southern extension of plains elk. “Merriami resembles what would occur in northern U.S. or southern Canada, presently” (Schonewald 1994:435n1; e-mail to Richardson Gill, July 11, 2011).

• Dale Toweill, Idaho wildlife manager and the senior editor of the com-prehensive work, North American Elk: Ecology and Management, wrote, “Considering the wide-ranging nature of elk and the lack of physical barriers to movement added to the very small number of samples from purported Merriam’s elk, I strongly suspect that designation of C. e. merriami as a distinct subspecies will be overturned following taxo-nomic revision” (Toweill and Thomas 2002; Dale Toweill, e-mail to Richardson Gill, December 28, 2011).

• Colin Groves, the senior author of Ungulate Taxonomy, stated emphati-cally, “There is not—never was—any such thing as ‘Merriam’s elk’ ” (Groves, e-mail to Richardson Gill, November 20, 2011; Groves and Grubb 2011).

32. Schonewald defi ned C. e. canadensis as a now extinct subspecies that inhabited the eastern United States.


Merriam’s Elk in TexasHow, then, did the idea that the native elk in Texas were Merriam’s elk come about? Writing in 1905, Vernon Bailey fi rst suggested that reports of elk in the Guadalupe Mountains of Texas in the nineteenth century were Merriam’s elk, but Bailey was unable to fi nd any specimens from Texas. He based his deter-mination that elk in the Guadalupe Mountains of Texas were probably Merriam’s elk on part of one skull and antlers from the Sacramento Mountains in New Mexico. According to Bailey, “No complete specimen, nor even a mounted head of this elk is in existence from any point in New Mexico, although there are a few old horns and part of a skull from near Ruidoso, and horns have been seen at ranches east of Cloudcroft and in the Mogollon Mountains” (Bailey 1931:44). In his infl uential 1905 book, Biological Survey of Texas, Bailey wrote:

C. merriami Nelson. Merriam Elk.

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. I could not get an actual record of one killed in Texas, or nearer than 6 or 8 miles north of the line, but as they were common to within a few years in the Sacramento Mountains, only 75 miles farther north, I am inclined to credit the rather indefi nite reports of their former occurrence in this part of Texas. Specimens of horns and a part of a skull from the Sacramento Mountains indicate that the species was very similar to and probably identical with the Arizona elk described by E.W. Nelson who has aided me in making the comparisons. (Bailey 1905:60, emphasis ours)

It is important to emphasize that Bailey examined no elk specimens from Texas nor any complete specimens from New Mexico, only one partial skull, a skin, and antlers. The paragraph above, nonetheless, has been the basis for the belief that the native elk in Texas were Merriam’s elk.

Today’s Elk in the Trans-PecosAs research for his master’s degree at Texas Tech University, Christopher Dunn, working with his faculty adviser, Dr. Robert Bradley, undertook a study to


determine the origins and genetic affi nities of populations of free-ranging elk in the Trans-Pecos. He designed his research to test three hypotheses:

• First, it is known that a number of private ranch owners released elk onto their ranches in West Texas and additional releases were made by Texas Parks and Wildlife Department (Witt 2008:1–2). High-fence hunting resorts have bred captive-reared elk in order to have populations of elk that could be hunted. The fi rst hypothesis, then, is that the free-ranging elk are descendants of the private or public releases of elk or escapees from the high-fence ranches.

• Second, in 1928, Judge J.C. Hunter introduced elk from the Black Hills of South Dakota into McKittrick Canyon in the Guadalupe Mountains. Those elk had been introduced to the Black Hills from Yellowstone Na-tional Park. The second hypothesis was that the elk reintroduced to McKittrick Canyon in the Guadalupes had migrated and repopulated other parts of the Trans-Pecos and, therefore, would be genetically related to the elk in South Dakota today.

• The third scenario that could explain the repopulation of elk in the Trans-Pecos is the emigration of native elk from New Mexico into Texas through the Sacramento Mountains in New Mexico and the Guadalupe, Delaware, and Davis mountains in Texas. These natural corridors could be used for the transit of elk from established herds in New Mexico. If the free-ranging elk now resident in Texas were isolated from the New Mexico elk, it might be possible to determine genetic differences between the two populations. If, however, the elk are freely traveling back and forth, admixture would be occurring and it would not be possible to detect any genetic differences between the populations in New Mexico and Texas.

Dunn collected samples from elk in the Davis and Glass mountains in Texas, from several sites in New Mexico, and from South Dakota. Mitochondrial DNA sequences were examined in combination with microsatellite loci, to assess the genetic divergence, relationship, and origin of the contemporary elk herds in the Trans-Pecos. Further, he ran computer simulations of population genetic parameters using the microsatellite data. The results of the DNA analysis and the computer simulations support a scenario consistent with the origin of elk in the Davis and Glass mountains being the result of natural emigrants from New Mexico, beginning in the 1930s. In addition, simulations did not detect evidence


of a genetic bottleneck during the past 350 generations, indicating a long, shared history between Texas and New Mexico elk (Dunn 2016:3–5, 16, 20).

Elk most likely emigrated from the Lincoln National Forest area into the northern regions of the Trans-Pecos via the Davis, Sacramento, and Delaware Mountain ranges. Based on the data present herein, the scenario that Texas elk are a natural population and a product of emigration from herds in southern New Mexico and subsequent es-tablishment of viable populations is most likely. . . . It appears that elk are still currently, and historically exchanging genetic material (Dunn 2016:17–18).

Dunn has demonstrated that elk today migrate into and out of the Trans-Pecos and are exchanging genetic material with populations to the north. The same would have been true in the past. The elk in Texas were never isolated from the vast genetic pool of elk in and east of the Rocky Mountains. After the extirpation that occurred in the nineteenth century, elk began to move into and recolonize areas of their former native range in the Trans-Pecos through natural immigration.


Conclusion and DiscussionThere have been no DNA studies on bones from native elk that lived in Texas before 1900, which could possibly be an area for future research for those bones found in archaeological contexts. Neither Nelson nor Bailey ever ex-amined any specimens of elk from Texas. DNA analysis and computer simula-tions indicate that the free-ranging elk in the Davis and Glass mountains today are natural populations that migrate in and out of the Trans-Pecos and in and out of New Mexico. Given the lack of evidence supporting Merriam’s elk as a separate species or subspecies, it is most likely that the elk that lived in Texas in the past would have been genetically indistinguishable from the single elk subspecies in North America in and east of the Rocky Mountains and, accord-ing to some researchers, would have been the same subspecies as all other elk in North America. The elk in Texas today are likely to be genetically indistin-guishable from the elk that lived in Texas in the past. The native elk that once lived in Texas and the free-ranging elk that live in Texas today most likely were and are not only the same species, but the same subspecies, Cervus ca-nadensis canadensis.

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