After a 145-year absence, elk make their triumphant return to Missouri

By the end of April, a 346-square-mile swath of southeastern Missouri will look like the state last did in the mid-19th century: with 800-pound elk clomping around the woods.

Elk are a native species to the state, but European settlers depended so heavily on them for food and hides, by 1865 they were gone. “For consumptive reasons, they basically killed them all. That’s the bottom line,” says Missouri Department of Conservation resource scientist Lonnie Hansen. “The reality is, the deer, the elk, the turkey, the large mammals, essentially disappeared because they were shot to oblivion.”