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MT file photo Rockey Mountain Elk trapped near LaGrande were released into Kentucky forests on Wednesday. Oregon elk head to Kentucky By MARK FREEMAN A truckload of Oregon's Rocky Mountain elk is headed to the bluegrass state as part of a program to reintroduce the species to Kentucky forests that have not seen elk since pre-Civil War times. Fifty-six elk trapped near LaGrande arrived in Kentucky on Wednesday to bolster an experimental herd of 300 animals released there in 1997. The elk cache includes 23 adult females and 33 calves. No adult bulls were relocated. The elk are considered excess animals in the LaGrande area, where state wildlife biologists have been trapping and relocating the animals recently. Instead of these elk going into other areas of Oregon, they hopped a truck to Kentucky instead. The release, which is done in conjunction with both states and the Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation, is part of a program meant to return elk in areas where they were extirpated in the mid-1800s. "The sportsmen and women of Kentucky are grateful to our counterparts in Oregon," says Gary West, the elk foundation's eastern director of development. "This is a historic restoration project, putting elk back in an ecosystem they have not existed in for 150 years." Unlike previous wildlife exchanges in which Oregon has traded otters for wild turkeys, Oregon is not receiving any cash or other species in return. "Most of the types of things Kentucky has, we're not interested in here in Oregon or they would not fit in with what we have here," says Dan Edwards, who heads the big-game program for the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife. "There's no agreement where we'll be getting anything back in the future." But ODFW Director Jim Greer sees this week's transplant as a late payment on a similar program Oregon once used. In 1912-13, when Oregon's elk populations were perilously low, the state received two elk shipments from Wyoming, and the animals were released into the northeast Oregon area -- the same general area where this week's elk came from -- to bolster small herds there, Greer says. "It's a great feeling to return the favor, 90 years later, by helping out the state of Kentucky," he says. The transplanted elk were taken from a herd near LaGrande that had outgrown its area, causing excessive agricultural damage, according to the ODFW. When such a condition occurs, department biologists typically trap and relocate some of the elk. One such program in 1993 led to the reintroduction of Roosevelt elk into a piece of remote Siskiyou National Forest terrain burned by the Silver Fire in 1987. In this case, some of the excess elk were held in the large fenced enclosure within the Forest Service's Starkey Experimental Forest near LaGrande. The elk were trucked by a North Dakota firm, which covered the trek in about 30 hours. The elk were supplied with food and water for their trip. In Kentucky, the elk are bound for the Cumberland Plateau, an area that was once extensively mined for coal. Reclaimed mines provide plenty of forage, the agency says. (Staff writer Mark Freeman covers the outdoors for the Mail Tribune. Call him at 776-4470, or e-mail him at [email protected] ) Outdoor Journal Today's Edition : News | Sports | Business | Weather | Tempo | Classifieds Mail Tribune Mail Tribune � 2000 -- Medford, Oregon USA