Project aiming to return elk to UK moves forward

Wildlife experts said they had progressed in a project to reintroduce elk to wetlands in Nottinghamshire.

Elk were once a native species to the UK, but they became extinct about 3,000 years ago, predominantly due to hunting.

Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire wildlife trusts secured £15,000 of funding from the Rewilding Britain charity earlier this year to start feasibility studies into the animals' return.

Janice Bradley, from the Nottinghamshire Wildlife Trust, said a disease risk assessment, expected by early next year, was a significant step.

Ms Bradley, the charity's head of nature recovery, said elk were a "very important megaherbivore".

"They're a keystone species that has a phenomenal impact on wetland - particularly wetland environments - but a whole range of other different habitats," she said.

Elk and other herbivores' impacts on their environments mean they can determine which other creatures thrive.

Ms Bradley said where elk had survived in Europe, there was evidence of them "improving, enhancing and diversifying" those habitats to the benefit of other species.

The disease risk assessment, carried out by a specialist veterinary consultant, will look at where the elk would come from, and the possibility of disease spreading from or to the species.

Ms Bradley said elk were "living perfectly happy" across multiple European countries, with no evidence of disease transmission, but added the project still had to take a "robust approach".

Subject to a suitable risk assessment and further funding, the elk would be reintroduced firstly in a "very large wild-type enclosure" and in small numbers, Ms Bradley said.

The space would be a large area of a nature reserve with fences around it to ensure the animals cannot roam around the floodplain - essentially a "halfway house".

She added: "Ultimately, we would hope to see wild elk roaming throughout the floodplains of Britain, starting with the Trent and Idle. But that's some way off."

Ms Bradley is also part of a project that saw beavers return to the county in 2021 for the first time in at least 400 years.

Like elk, beavers are herbivores and have brought "great benefit" to the local environment, according to the conservation expert.

"We've already seen from our enclosed beavers, that the increase in species richness that they create in the habitats where they are, is just phenomenal," she said.

The next steps toward introducing elk include considering any identified risks, engaging with the public and landowners, and ensuring there is a suitable enclosure.

"Like all these things, it's down to funding," Ms Bradley said.

"The technical elements won't be the hold-up, it'll be the funding available for those logistics."

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