Ohio lawmakers introduce a bill that may reintroduce elk to the state after 200 years of extirpation

For most Ohioans, elk are something you see on a hunting show filmed out West, or in an old painting, or in a story about the frontier that feels too distant to matter anymore, which is exactly why the sudden reappearance of the word “elk” in statehouse talk has been catching people off guard.

Dave Golowenski, writing for The Columbus Dispatch, and Ricky from the hunting-and-taxidermy YouTube channel Good Taxidermy, both describe the same basic reality from two different angles: a new push in Columbus could fund an official feasibility study, which is the first real step any state takes before it tries to put elk back on the ground.

That doesn’t mean elk are coming next season, and it doesn’t mean a hunt is around the corner, but it does mean Ohio is flirting with a question that hasn’t been practical for roughly two centuries – what would it take to bring elk back, and what would the state have to change to live with them if it actually worked.

How Ohio Lost Elk In The First Place

Golowenski begins by reminding readers that Ohio didn’t gently “phase out” elk as the state modernized, because the truth is harsher than that and a little embarrassing if you love the romance of the early American story.

He explains that Ohio’s eastern elk were extirpated – eradicated – by about 1840, with the collapse driven by multiple factors, including hunting, and he notes that the last free-ranging elk in Ohio was likely killed in or near Ashtabula County sometime after statehood in 1803 and before the Wyandots were exiled in 1843.

Ricky tells the same story with the bluntness you hear when hunters are talking among themselves, saying the last eastern elk in Ohio was shot in Ashtabula County in 1835 and that people believed only two were left, which is the kind of detail that makes the whole thing feel less like “history” and more like a crime scene that never got solved.

However you line up the dates, the point lands the same way: elk didn’t drift away from Ohio, they were wiped out, and the state went on so long without them that most people eventually forgot they were ever here.

The Catch: It Won’t Be The Same Elk

Both sources also make a point that matters more than it first appears, because it changes what “reintroduction” even means.

Golowenski writes that the eastern elk was a subspecies separate from the western elk that managed to hold on in the West, and he notes that the last breathing eastern elk was shot on Sept. 1, 1877 in Pennsylvania, with the lineage later declared extinct in 1880 by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

Ricky echoes that history, calling the eastern elk – sometimes referred to as the American elk – extinct in 1877, and he talks about old depictions like John James Audubon’s famous painting of the American elk as a reminder that what once lived in the Ohio Valley was genetically different from the elk people picture today.

So if Ohio ever gets elk again, it won’t be a strict “we brought back what we had,” the way a true restoration project sounds in a headline, but more of a substitution using western elk, which is exactly how Kentucky and Pennsylvania built the herds they have now.

That distinction might sound academic, yet it matters because it forces the state to be honest about the goal – this wouldn’t be time travel, it would be modern wildlife management trying to rebuild a missing piece of the landscape with the closest living match.

The Bill And Why The Money Matters

Golowenski reports that State Rep. Justin Pizzulli, a Republican from Scioto County, is proposing a bill that includes a $3 million appropriation so the Ohio Department of Natural Resources can conduct elk reintroduction studies, framing it as a serious investment rather than a symbolic gesture.

Ricky, covering the same issue from the hunting community side, identifies the proposal as HB 641 and says it would allocate $1 million to the Ohio Division of Wildlife for an elk feasibility study while also putting $2 million toward feasibility work connected to ATV and side-by-side trail expansion, which he emphasizes because it shows the elk idea is embedded in a broader outdoor-recreation package.

The numbers aren’t perfectly aligned between the two tellings, but the practical takeaway is clear either way: lawmakers are talking about real dollars and an official study, and that’s the kind of step that turns “wouldn’t it be cool” into something agencies have to actually plan for.

Golowenski also injects a quiet note of skepticism by pointing out that it isn’t known whether ODNR or its subagency, the user-funded Ohio Division of Wildlife, is even interested in establishing an elk herd, especially at a time when a decline in hunters makes deer management harder and not easier.

That line is important because it hints at the tension underneath the excitement: elk are glamorous, but day-to-day wildlife management is often about solving unglamorous problems with limited staff, limited budgets, and a public that mostly only pays attention after something goes wrong.

Kentucky And Pennsylvania Show What’s Possible – And What Isn’t

Ricky spends a good portion of his video walking through the neighboring states that already did what Ohio is now only talking about, and his tone is the tone of someone trying to wake up his audience before the moment passes.

He points to Pennsylvania and Kentucky as proof that elk can return to the region, and he describes how Kentucky conducted an elk reintroduction feasibility study in 1997 and then began relocation efforts that same year, ultimately building one of the most well-known eastern elk success stories.

Golowenski makes a similar point from a different angle by noting that Ohio hunters who want elk usually travel west, but that nearby states like Kentucky and Pennsylvania now offer limited elk hunts through annual lotteries heavily weighted toward residents, which effectively means most non-residents can expect their odds to be beyond slim.

That “beyond slim” detail is where the story starts to feel personal to hunters, because it’s not just about elk existing in the region, it’s about who gets access and how rare the opportunity becomes when you’re always the out-of-state applicant.

If Ohio ever built its own herd, it could transform elk from a once-in-a-lifetime travel dream into something Ohioans could at least hope for in their own state, even if tags were limited and the wait was long.

The Payoff Question That Won’t Go Away

Golowenski does something reporters should do more often: he takes the optimistic talking point – “elk will generate revenue” – and pressures it with real math.

He notes that Pizzulli forecasts elk in Ohio could generate revenue by helping sell hunting licenses and permits to non-residents, then he wonders about the payoff when the studies alone could cost $3 million, especially if Ohio tried to model itself after Kentucky’s permit structure.

Using Kentucky as a rough template, Golowenski points out that Kentucky issues about 500 elk permits annually, with roughly 50 available to non-residents, and he calculates that if a non-resident license, permit application, and permit totals about $760, it would take 3,945 out-of-state sales to reach $3 million – meaning, at 50 non-resident permits per year, you’d be looking at something like 79 years just to match the study cost through that narrow stream of revenue.

He acknowledges, fairly, that resident permits and broader spending would likely recoup the money faster, but the larger warning still hangs there: elk programs aren’t a vending machine where you insert a study and instantly get profit.

Ricky doesn’t lean into that fiscal caution, because his purpose is different; he frames the possible return of elk as a conservation win and argues that hunters should see it that way, even noting that while hunters helped drive the eastern elk to extinction through overhunting, modern hunters and modern hunting systems can be part of bringing elk back to native lands.

Both viewpoints can be true at the same time, yet they point to a real challenge Ohio would face if it moves forward: the state would have to sell this as more than a hunting perk, because the costs and the impacts would reach far beyond license buyers.

Land, Collisions, Crops, And The Problems Nobody Wants To Talk About

Even if the state funds a feasibility study, that study would exist to answer the questions people avoid until elk are already in someone’s hayfield.

Golowenski asks whether Ohio has enough viable land to sustain a herd that would actually matter, raising the example of Kentucky’s roughly 10,000-strong herd as a scale point that makes you realize how much habitat and public tolerance a large elk population requires.

Ricky anticipates the pushback too, mentioning the kinds of concerns he expects to hear – car accidents, elk eating gardens, the general “they’re going to be a nuisance” argument – and he answers it with a shrugging kind of realism, noting that Ohio already deals with plenty of deer collisions and that planners would likely look at more remote areas, especially in the southern part of the state.

That last piece matters because it hints at what this would probably become if Ohio moved past the study phase: not a statewide elk free-for-all, but a concentrated effort in specific landscapes where the habitat, the human footprint, and the political tolerance all line up.

A Hidden Flashpoint: Ohio’s Hunting Rules Might Have To Change

Golowenski raises another issue that sounds technical until you realize it would touch off major debate the moment it becomes real: humane lethality.

He points out that elk can be taken with a bow, but that high-powered rifles with more stopping power than any firearm currently legal for hunting in Ohio would likely need approval, because elk are larger and tougher than the whitetails that define Ohio big-game hunting.

That’s a big deal, because the moment you talk about changing what firearms are legal for hunting, you’re no longer just talking about elk, you’re talking about culture, regulation, and the entire structure of hunting politics in the state.

In other words, elk might not only change wildlife management, they could force Ohio to reconsider the tools it allows hunters to use, which is the kind of second-order effect that never makes the first headline but often becomes the bigger fight.

Timeline Talk And What “Soon” Could Really Mean

Ricky is careful to tell his audience that a feasibility study doesn’t mean elk are automatically coming, but he also lays out why people should pay attention now rather than later.

He says the bill would require the money to be paid within the fiscal year of 2026 if it passes, and he notes that by the end of 2028 the final report would have to be presented to the statehouse and the governor, which is the kind of timeline that can make a far-off idea feel suddenly close.

He even suggests that if Ohio followed patterns seen in neighboring states, reintroduction could begin not long after the report, with 2029 floating as a plausible starting point for the process in a best-case scenario, even if he admits that would require the kind of “perfect storm” alignment that rarely happens.

Golowenski doesn’t speculate that far ahead, but he does frame the entire bill as something worth watching, because whether it gains traction – or dies quietly – will say a lot about how Ohio sees its future outdoors economy and its future wildlife priorities.

The Real Question Is Whether Ohio Wants A Wilder Ohio

It’s easy to reduce this story to a single shiny idea – “elk hunting might come to Ohio” – because that’s the hook that grabs attention, especially for the people who already buy licenses and dream about big ridgelines and bugling bulls.

But the deeper question underneath both Golowenski’s reporting and Ricky’s enthusiasm is whether Ohio actually wants a wilder Ohio, because elk are not just a hunting opportunity, they’re a living, moving test of how much space the state is willing to share with a large animal that doesn’t care about property lines, garden fences, or commute traffic.

Ricky’s point about hunters being part of the elk’s original disappearance – and potentially part of its return – hits hard because it frames the issue as responsibility, not just recreation; if elk come back, it will be because modern conservation systems, funded and supported heavily by hunters, decided the state is capable of managing them.

Golowenski’s skepticism, though, is the reminder that capability isn’t just goodwill – it’s habitat, money, agency interest, and public patience, which can evaporate fast the first time an elk causes a wreck or damages a farm and people start asking why Ohio invited the problem in.

Right now, the story is about studies, not stockings, and about whether lawmakers will fund the first serious step rather than whether anyone has already chosen a release site.

Golowenski frames it as an open question whether ODNR and the Division of Wildlife even want this, and he suggests it will be “an interesting follow” to see whether the proposal gets traction; Ricky, on the other hand, urges outdoorsmen to treat it as something that belongs on every Ohio hunter’s radar and to reach out to their representatives if they want to see it move.

If this bill advances, Ohio won’t suddenly have elk, but it will have something it hasn’t had in a long time: a real, official, funded conversation about putting a missing piece back into the state’s landscape, and about whether Ohio is willing to accept the costs and complications that come with restoring what it once helped wipe out.