First Elk Reintroduction Site Traditional Cache
Hidden : 4/2/2014
Difficulty:
2.5 out of 5
Terrain:
2.5 out of 5

Size: Size: regular (regular)

Join now to view geocache location details. It's free!

Watch

How Geocaching Works
Looking for a different adventure?

Please note Use of geocaching.com services is subject to the terms and conditions in our disclaimer.

Geocache Description:

Our native elk were extirpated from the state in the late 1800’s. This site is where the first reintroduction of elk took place in the state in January of 1913.



The creation of the Game Commission in 1895 paved the way for an ambitious effort to replenish and provide additional protection to many of the state’s dangerously low wildlife populations. Deer, turkeys and quail topped the list of game animals the agency bought and released. In 1912, the Game Commissioners and agency Executive Secretary Joseph Kalbfus began talking about re-introducing elk in Pennsylvania. The idea stemmed from a federal government effort to reduce the mushrooming elk herds at Yellowstone National Park and the Jackson Hole Refuge Area, preserves that were protecting the remnants of America's once-mighty elk population. The U.S. Department of Agriculture's Bureau of Biological Survey and Department of Forestry, unwilling to sanction a hunt for the overabundant animals, opted to translocate some and winter feed the rest.
Kalbfus wrote in his 1912 annual report, "It now appears that the herds of elk found upon the public domain of the far West are annually subjected to severe suffering and death by starvation because of the limitation and taking for agricultural purposes of their winter feeding grounds, and that ... the national government is anxious to reduce the western herds by placing numbers of these animals elsewhere to their benefit, the cost to those receiving such animals being only the expense incurred in their capture and transportation..."
"I believe it would be well to locate the elk that may be received upon those of our preserves located upon the largest tracts of our state forest lands as far as possible from cultivated lands, and as near the center of the state as may be, in this way giving the animals as great range as possible, and at the same time reduce to the minimum the danger of injury to growing crops by these animals and the possibility of their wandering out of our jurisdiction."
In 1913, Pennsylvania's first shipment of Yellowstone elk arrived by train. The 50 elk cost about $30 each. Half of the Wyoming wapiti shipment went to Clinton County, the other half to Clearfield County. An additional 22 elk were bought from a Monroe County preserve that year. Twelve were released on state lands in Monroe County and the remainder on a Centre County preserve.
NOTE: The only cost to the state receiving elk was the charge of $10 per head for capturing and the freight charges to their destination. The freight on the car received here amounts to $500, putting the cost of the elk at $30/animal.
The following information was gathered from news clippings from 1913 regarding the first reintroduction of elk in Clearfield County, Pennsylvania. Clearfield & DuBois newspapers.
State Game Protector Hummelsbaugh received the following telegram at noon on Friday, January 24, 1913.

Harrisburg, P., Jan. 24, 1913.
H.E. Hummelsbaugh,
Clearfield, Pa: -
Car load of Elk left Chicago this morning at 4 a.m.
Hold yourself in readiness to receive them Saturday evening
or some time Sunday.
JOSEPH E. KALBFUS
Sec. Game Commission

A corral two acres in size was ready to receive the elk in the Kennedy Game Park (Game Refuge or Game Reserve/Preserve) in Clearfield County.

Monday, January 27, 1913, the two carloads of elk arrive in DuBois, PA in the morning. One carload of 25 elk is destined for Renovo to go to the State Game Refuge in Clinton County, and the other carload of 25 is headed to the Kennedy Game Refuge in Clearfield County.

Monday, January 27, 1913, a carload of 25 elk – five bulls and 20 cows – arrives in Clearfield, PA in the evening.

Thursday, January 30, 1913, the elk are transported by wagons the nine miles up the mountain from Clearfield to the Kennedy Game refuge (2,000 acres which would have included present day S.B. Elliott State Park and a portion of Moshannon State Forest to the east and south). The elk are transferred from the wagons to the corral – one cow elk escapes through the gate before it can be closed.

Game Warden receives a postcard dated Feb. 1, 1913 (Saturday) from a citizen of Tyler, PA stating that the errant elk had passed through the area and was headed north.

February 6, 1913, Amos Kline, keeper of the Kennedy Reserve, contacted the paper (Public Spirit – Clearfield) to say that the elk are getting along fine and appear to be perfectly at home in their quarters. He said that had the corral fence not been extremely strong the herd would probably have gotten out, as the bulls kept ramming the wires. The escaped cow elk had not been rounded up yet.

February 13, 1913, three young cows were reported to have “died last week” in the Kennedy Reserve. The State Veterinary held a post mortem and decided that the deaths were likely the result of injuries received in the railroad car. [One of the elk in the Renovo corral also died from injuries.]

April 17, 1913, Amos Kline contacted the paper to inform them that the elk had been released from the corral and have made themselves at home on the mountains, the same as our native deer.

Additional Hints (Decrypt)

Bu, ubj gur zvtugl unir snyyra.

Decryption Key

A|B|C|D|E|F|G|H|I|J|K|L|M
-------------------------
N|O|P|Q|R|S|T|U|V|W|X|Y|Z

(letter above equals below, and vice versa)


Attributes

No attributes available

Advertising with Us

Inventory

There are no Trackables in this cache.

View past Trackables

What are Trackable Items?

Bookmark Lists

View all bookmark lists...