ST. PAUL, Va. — Some government officials and the Virginia Mining Association are asking Virginia's wildlife department to prohibit hunting of elk that migrate into the state from a Kentucky restocking program.

        Kentucky began returning the animals to its eastern counties in 1998, including those that border Virginia.

        Virginia game officials, however, want to discourage elk from migrating to the state and have allowed elk to be hunted like deer. At least two elk have been killed in Wise County by hunters just three weeks into the season, said Tim Hayes, the county game warden.

        “The Virginia Game Commission is exacting revenge on Kentucky for basically not asking for and receiving Virginia's permission to stock elk in their own state,” said Frank Kilgore, a St. Paul lawyer and conservationist.

        The Virginia Mining Association has asked Virginia's wildlife department to stop elk hunting until the herds are established.

        Del. Terry Kilgore, R-Gate City, asked the department to “rethink the policy regarding the killing of these animals” in a June letter to department Director William Woodfin. Kilgore said Kentucky's restocking program has been successful and the program would be an opportunity for the two states to work together.

        Mike Howard, of Florence, a retired Boone County police lieutenant, an avid elk hunter and an active participant in the Kentucky effort to rebuild a “healthy elk herd in the Daniel Boone National Forest,” said “My feeling is they should be allowed to establish a herd there.”

        Allowing the elk to be shot in Virginia without the kind of limited hunt protection that is established in Kentucky could have a “substantial” impact on the annual increase of the 1,500-head elk herd recently reintroduced into Kentucky, Mr. Howard said.

        A herd of 1,500 head has an annual increase of about 200 to 300, Mr. Howard said. So, the two elk shot in Virginia in the last three weeks represent 1 percent of the total annual increase of the herd.

        Kakie Urch contributed.

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