eil Maynard of Stuttgart leans on an iron fence just off of AR Highway Hwy 43 south of Ponca, smiling as he trains his iPhone on a herd of wild elk. He and his


wife, Mary Ann, made the three-hour drive just to see them.


“They really are special. It is like you are in the Colorado mountains,” Maynard said.


There are about 70 elk in this herd, made up of cows (females) and 10 or so bulls (males).


“They are large animals,” said Bradley Savage, Administrative Assistant at the Ponca Elk


Education Center. “We lose more cars to elk, than elk to cars.”


Elk are one of the largest mammals in North America. Cows weigh an average of 400 pounds and males can weigh between 700 and 1,000 pounds.


Mary Ann tries to coax them closer. “It’s majestic the way they hold their heads up with their horns,” she said.


A bull elk’s antlers may rise 4 feet above their head, making them up to 9 feet tall. They are shed in March and a new set starts to grow in May in preparation for the mating season.


Western Elk are thriving in the Buffalo River watershed of Newton and Searcy counties


story and photos by DEAN CURTIS


Two bull elk graze in a field in Newton County.


Elk herds roam over 400,000 acres of public and private land along the Buffalo National River in Newton and Searcy Counties according to Savage. “The last time that they did a population count (using an aerial survey in 2013) they estimated there were just over 600 at that time. It could be quite a bit higher by now,” Savage said.


Page 1  |  Page 2  |  Page 3  |  Page 4  |  Page 5  |  Page 6  |  Page 7  |  Page 8  |  Page 9  |  Page 10  |  Page 11  |  Page 12  |  Page 13  |  Page 14  |  Page 15  |  Page 16  |  Page 17  |  Page 18  |  Page 19  |  Page 20  |  Page 21  |  Page 22  |  Page 23  |  Page 24  |  Page 25  |  Page 26  |  Page 27  |  Page 28  |  Page 29  |  Page 30