The Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians’ Natural Resource Office is asking the general public for assist in a case involving an elk calf poached by an archer. According to a Facebook submit from the Cherokee One Feather the calf was found on Sunday, Dec. 18 close to the Tsali Care Center in Cherokee, North Carolina. The EBCI Natural Resource Office has since put up a $1,000 reward for any info on who the offender could be.
The calf was lifeless upon discovery, in accordance with WRAL News.
“Elk, like deer, are a protected animal under Cherokee code and cannot be hunted on tribal lands,” the Natural Resources Office stated.
After the reward was introduced, Help Asheville Bears, a neighborhood bear advocacy group, put up an extra $5,000 in reward cash, making the full $6,000.
The elk herd wanders across the populated space when not grazing close to the Oconaluftee Visitor Center at Great Smoky Mountains National Park.
“Our residents here love seeing them,” Tsali Care Center receptionist Mallie Swayney informed WRAL News. “They usually come across the outside parking lot here, and they’ll come over to our side of the building and they walk around the parking lot. It’s really neat to see them.”
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Once ubiquitous in southern Appalachia, Eastern elk have been reintroduced to Great Smoky Mountains National Park in 2001 after being worn out of the world within the mid-1800s by habitat loss and over-hunting. They have since expanded past the Park boundary and onto EBCI lands, in accordance with EBCI. In 2010, the National Park Service and Principal Chief Michell Hicks signed a Memorandum of Understanding to handle the elk herd in a cooperative method, with EBCI managing the herd on their lands and the NPS managing it on theirs.
In 2020, EBCI’s Fisheries and Wildlife Department commissioned a research on the worth elk carry to the neighborhood, together with the Qualla Boundary, which is land owned and populated by enrolled EBCI members. Based on analysis and survey responses from each residents and guests, the elk herd brings an estimated $29 million and 400 jobs to the world. The city of Cherokee serves as a gateway neighborhood to Great Smoky Mountain National Park and hosts a variety of wildlife viewing tourism. The Qualla Boundary particularly will get about $7 million and 100 jobs from the herd.
There is not any elk looking season in North Carolina, and the Wildlife Resources Commission estimates that 150 to 200 elk at the moment stay within the state.