It’s a good news-bad news scenario for elk in the Mountain State.
“I have to say this year, calf production in 2024 may be the best so far, which is good because 2024 is one of the worst we’ve had in terms of brain worm,” Randy Kelley, West Virginia Division of Natural Resources (WVDNR) elk project leader, told the West Virginia Metro News. “Literature says you can expect between five and 10 percent mortality on your population over time. Each year it’s been different. We’ve had as little as four percent loss and this year it jumped up closer to 13 percent so 2024 was a gruesome year for us.”
Brain worm is not a foreign concept for West Virginia biologists and researchers. They know about it but are working to know even more.
The Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation helped successfully restore wild elk to their historic West Virginia range in 2016. Two years later, RMEF helped supplant the herd by working with WVDNR, Arizona Game and Fish Department and the Kentucky Department and Fish and Wildlife Resources to bring in more elk from those states.
In late 2024, RMEF supplied funding to help researchers better understand the genetics of transplanted elk so they can get a better handle on how elk from Arizona and Kentucky either do or don’t deal well with brain worm.
“We’re trying to link any differences we find genetically to physical characteristics of the elk,” said Adam Cook, a West Virginia University graduate student. “Adaptive differences can express themselves in real-life ways, like body and antler size. And because of the sexual selection process, that has a large influence on whether they mate and pass their genes on to the next generation. We’re looking for genes that we can maybe link to body size or survival and reproduction.”
Researchers already determined that whitetail deer carry the parasite but do not get sick from it. On the other hand, when elk are exposed, they often die.
The West Virginia Metro News reports 54 of 74 elk that died since being transplanted to West Virginia did so because of brain worm.
Kelley and his team continue to collect DNA samples and place GPS collars on elk calves they capture so they can monitor their movements, habitat use and causes of mortality.
(Photo credit: Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation)