Elk Hunting Could Return to North Carolina as Early as Next Fall

Elk haven’t roamed North Carolina’s mountains for over 200 years, and now, the state’s just about ready to kick off its first ever modern elk hunt. According to the state’s Wildlife Resources Commission, they believe that they have enough of these majestic giants to handle a small, controlled hunt down in a few southern Appalachian counties.

Rep. Cody Huneycutt, a Republican from Stanly County, is the guy behind the bill that is set to make it happen. “The herd’s healthy enough to sustain this,” he says, pointing to the commission’s green light. If it passes, two bull permits will be up for grabs in fall 2026—one auctioned to the highest bidder, the other raffled off to another lucky North Carolinian. 

As of right now, the bill has already cleared its first committee hurdle this week, with one more to go before the House weighs in.

With eastern elk being wiped off the landscape back in the 1700s in North Carolina, conservation groups have worked tirelessly to bring elk back to the Tarheel State. It was 20 years ago when the National Park Service brought in a Canadian subspecies to the Great Smoky Mountains with hopes that they’d stick around. By 2008, state officials called it a win, and the herd’s been growing ever since. The state started sketching out a hunting plan back in 2016, taking cues from neighbors like Tennessee (19 permits this year) and Virginia (five), but has yet to put together a successful campaign due to holes in population estimates.

As such, one of the main challenges for officials has been to figure out how many elk are actually presently kicking around North Carolina’s Smokies. To firm up an answer, biologists ditched the regular method of headcounting animals in the wild and, instead, turned their attention to their poop. 

University of Tennessee Ph.D. candidate Jessica Braunstein rallied over 50 folks from the North Carolina Wildlife Resources Commission, Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians, National Park Service, and UT for a three-year scat-hunting marathon that wrapped up last year. They braved brutal winters, hacking through rhododendron and mountain laurel on steep slopes, scouring over 1,200 random transects across public lands like the Great Smoky Mountains National Park and private properties too. 

Once collected, the elk droppings got shipped off for DNA analysis, spilling secrets about who left them (and their gender), which helped Braunstein peg the population at around 240 by 2022—way up from the original 52, despite some early struggles with black bear predation. That’s gold for wildlife pros at the NCWRC, who need solid numbers on population size, growth, and survival to keep the herd thriving and clear any potential hunting seasons.

Not everyone’s thrilled with the auction idea, though. Members from the North Carolina Backcountry Hunters and Anglers say they’d like to see both permits raffled off instead of one being sent off for auction. The bill states that most auction cash would stay with the state for elk conservation, with 25% of proceeds earmarked for the Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation. Raffle tickets are set to be sold for a cool $20 a piece, and the state keeps it all.

As of right now, it looks like North Carolina’s elk are back and are in relatively good health. With yet another kick at can with this new bill, maybe, just maybe, a couple of hunters will get their shot in 2026.