The following organizations have provided funding for this Into the Outdoors television series.

Okay.

Four toes, claws.

Pretty long stride.

Hey, Zach.

Oh, it's just you.

Who'd you expect Bigfoot?

No.

He's got way bigger feet than these.

Hey now my feet aren't that big.

I'm trying to figure out which animal left these tracks in my yard last night.

I've narrowed it down to three possibilities, which are a wolverine an armadillo or my neighbor's cat, Princess Cuddlekins.

Right.

Well, could you take a break from that?

We just had a question come in from a viewer, and I think you're going to like this one.

Hey adventure team.

I learned in school that Elk were elimated in my state of Wisconsin for 130 years.

But today they roam the forest regions in large numbers.

My teacher says Native American tribes have something to do with their return.

My question is, how did the elk come back and why?

She's right.

I remember my friend James talking about how bringing the elk back to Wisconsin was a big deal for his tribe.

Great.

Can he tell us more?

Yeah, he can.

Then let's go into the outdoors.

(music) “Grab your gear and” “Lets explore.” “As we discover” “The wild outdoors.” “Science.

Discovery.” “Is what we do.” “You can make our Earth.” “A bright and better planet.” “By joining us.” “In this wide open space.” “Into the Outdoors.” (Music) Okay.

So I called my friend James.

He's part of the Ojibwe nation.

He knows someone who can tell us about why the elk are so important to the tribe's culture and the reasons behind bringing them back.

Awesome.

While you do that.

I'll see what I can find out about how the elk came here, where they are today, and who's looking after them.

Sounds like a plan.

Catch you later.

See you.

Oh, well, I got to go.

Yeah, okay.

Before we dive into the question at hand, let's learn more about Elk.

Elk are one of the largest terrestrial, meaning they live on land mammals in North America.

They're part of the deer family and perhaps best known for the bull's bugle call, a hair raising, high pitched, whistling grunt that carries for more than a mile.

Elk also called Wapiti, a name derived from a Shawnee Indian word, meaning white rump.

Elk are very adaptable and live in a wide range of habitats from meadows, terrain forests and hardwood forests.

To desert valleys before a European settlement, an estimated 10 million elk roamed the United States and Canada.

But because of unregulated hunting, loss of habitat and urbanization throughout the 1800s, there were less than 100,000 elk in North America by the early 20th century.

And elk east of the Mississippi completely disappeared.

But here's some good news.

In recent years, restoration programs and conservation groups have successfully reintroduced Elk to wilderness areas where they once roamed, particularly in states east of the Mississippi, like Wisconsin.

Today, an estimated 1 million elk live in the western U.S. and Canada.

Okay, back to the mission ahead.

Hey.

James, hey Zach glad you made it.

Glad to be here.

Oh, I got this Elder I want you to meet.

He'll help you with your question.

Oh, that would be great.

Zach, this is my friend Dennis.

Dennis White from the Lac Courte Oreilles Tribe.

He's a longtime teacher and cultural leader.

Nice to meet you.

Good to see you guys.

Thanks so much for having us here.

I'm interested in learning more about what bringing the Elk back to Wisconsin has done for the Ojibwe tribes.

I think it's a symbolic thing of of of restoring our very ways of life in some way.

I mean, I'm really happy that that we have we have what we do have.

We have our ways.

And we have our we still have our language.

And we need to spread that further.

You know, the ways back historically, how were the elk used by the native tribes?

I think if we use any of the resources we have, they're used in the best way.

And it was harvest.

It wasn't just so that you could put something on the wall and it wasn't just for sport.

It was a way of maintaining your very way of life, maintaining our subsistence existence.

Nobody told us we needed a certain amount of protein or anything, but we knew we needed it and we needed that.

And we knew we needed the vegetables that we raised, and we knew we needed the berries that were grown all around us.

It was for our people so that they could be strong and be who they're supposed to be and good, healthy people.

Denis why was it important that native tribes be a part of the releasing of the elk and bringing them back?

I think it's important because it's part of a reviving of our culture.

We have to we have to keep our culture alive.

And the parts that aren't, aren't, aren't alive.

We have to awaken them somehow.

That's what the elk being brought back here and meant to do, but it meant to not only just so that people said we revived the elk, but we revive the elk because they were at one time part of us.

Well, thank you for for just talking to me, just giving me information about why why Elk is so important to you and your culture.

Well, you guys are important to me, too, so I'm glad you're here.

I was really glad I was able to meet Dennis and he was able to tell me a lot about how Elk bringing them back.

It was able to restore a part of his culture that they had lost when the elk first left.

(Elk Call) Okay.

So I did some digging.

And it turns out that bringing Elk back into Wisconsin was a major team effort between the Ojibwe tribes, the Great Lakes, Indian Fish and Wildlife Commission, the Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation and the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources.

The first group of 25 Elk were released in Wisconsin from Michigan in 1995 after being gone for 110 years, wild elk once again roamed the northwoods of Wisconsin.

Efforts began again in 2015, with over 150 Kentucky Elk being released in Wisconsin over a five year period.

Wow that's sure a lot of elk.

Let's take a look back to the spring of 2019 when the most recent group of Kentucky Elk were released here in Wisconsin.

We are here because we have 48 new elk coming into our area, right near our reservation here in the Lac Courte Oreilles Reservation.

This is a final year of bringing new animals into the state from from the state of Kentucky and bringing in some genetic diversity into the herd and providing opportunity for the future generations, Wisconsinites.

It's just it's amazing.

They have to go through 120 day quarantine period, which started in late January.

We have taken thousands of people out into the woods and introduced them not only to Elk but to that whole conservation ethic.

This project has gotten thousands of kids off the couch and outside and interested in wildlife.

I'm glad that the elk are here and we go to the next phase of elk reintroduction and that's let them grow, see what happens, and see how the people of Wisconsin enjoy them over the years.

We wanted to make sure that we were involved in every aspect of bringing the elk back, because any time you can can put a piece of the web of life back together.

That's always a good thing, getting things back in balance.

Whether it's a female elk with a calf or a humongous elk with a big, big horns, you know, you get that feeling of majesty, I guess, is the word that comes to mind.

There's pride there.

There's a lot of emotions.

And especially when I'm with my son and we see him and he gets to see them and he's his eyes get big and he's in awe of them.

We're here as some of the tribal communities and Great Lakes Indian Fish and Wildlife Commission to to be here take part in a ceremony this this afternoon to to welcome our relatives Omashkooz, it's our word for the elk welcoming back to this area.

So we're going to be partaking in an offering here in a little bit.

We've asked one of our elders to come down and help to, uh, to bless these grounds and ask that these, uh, these Omashkooz, these elk come here and, you know, they're, they're able to find the things that they need to help survive and to help revitalize the populations here so that maybe one day we'll have full on full on healthy Elk herds back in Wisconsin again in these these areas.

(Drumming) It is clear that welcoming the elk back into Wisconsin has a deep cultural meaning to the Ojibwe tribes.

But more than that, there's something called treaty rights that gives the tribes an important stake in not just the well-being of the elk, but all the wildlife in the area.

To find out more about this, I went to an expert.

Travis is a wildlife biologist who also studies elk.

Travis, why are you interested in animals?

Well, I work for an organization called the Great Lakes Indian Fish and Wildlife Commission.

It's also known as GLIFWC and GLIFWC represents 11 Ojibwe tribes throughout the western Great Lakes region in portions of Minnesota, Wisconsin and Michigan.

And so part of what we do at GLIFWC is natural resource management and stewardship.

And so part of those responsibilities includes assisting the tribes with the implementation of treaty rights to hunt fish and gather in the region.

And so I'm really interested in the elk, because it's another one of those resources that the tribes have a lot of interest in.

And so we want to make sure that we can maintain a healthy herd going into the future for future generations.

Here's what Travis is talking about when he mentions treaty rights.

Beginning in 1836, Ojibwe tribes signed a treaty or a contract with the United States government.

In return for giving up their land.

The tribes were to retain or keep the right to hunt fish and gather on the land.

Those treaty rights were largely ignored by the government until the mid 1900s, when a series of court decisions affirmed the rights of those tribes.

So what does it all mean?

It means the Ojibwe are entitled to or have the right to resources from the land, including birch bark, maple sirup, fish animals, a hunting trip and more.

So what's different about the ways the tribes approach Elk hunting?

The tribes work together.

So there's 11 member tribes.

Ten of those tribes have been participating in the Elk hunts in northern Wisconsin.

And one way that they've done this, because there's a limited number of tags and there's more tribes than than there are elk tags available.

They've taken this intertribal approach.

This has led to the establishment of a ceremonial camp where before the elk hunt, they will have an opening ceremony.

And so they'll they'll have drum songs and pipe ceremonies.

You know, it's they see it as being more important than just going out in and harvesting an elk.

There's everything involved in the process, building up to the hunt and then bringing it back to the community and sharing the elk with the whole community.

My name is Tony Larson.

I harvested the first ceremonial elk along with my good buddy.

Back in September of 2012.

I'd like to tell the story because it's kind of a funny.

I think it's funny anyway.

We had to get up early and drive up to Clam Lake.

We're going along and I'm driving.

Bill reaches in a baggie, brings out a pack of Fig Newtons, so he's fiddling around with his opening, his package of Fig Newtons.

You know, we're suppose to be watching both sides.

So I check it out his side because he's doing this.

And then he looks up on my side and there it was.

He was 50 feet away.

A young bull on my side, Bill says right there.

And so get the gun, you know.

And I tell the story that, yeah, the Fig Newtons were flying, you know, we get the gun and I. I step out of the truck.

The gun.

Load it up.

The elk is straight next to me, you know?

So I'm walking toward toward it.

It started going away from me.

I, I whistle you know, and I stopped and he was angled away from me like this.

So I, I come back on him a little bit and shot and he probably went maybe 50 feet and dropped, you know.

Very exciting, very exciting moment.

I had never shot an Elk before.

I was very honored to be a part of it.

Hmm.

I wonder what Aubrey and Zach will be teaching us next.

So you may have noticed that we at into the outdoors, like to drop the words conservation and stewardship a lot when talking about plants, animals.

But what do those words really mean?

Here's a little breakdown.

Stewardship means responsibly managing resources, being thoughtful consumers, and protecting the natural environment.

Basically, it means taking care of something.

And in the case of our planet, we want to take good care of it with a little education and effort.

Anyone can be a responsible steward of planet Earth.

Conservation means taking action to protect our land and water resources and the plants and animals that depend on them.

For example, conservation efforts might focus on protecting a species from extinction by restoring its habitat and protecting biological diversity.

So there you have it.

There's no stewardship without conservation and there's no conservation without stewardship.

And as you'll see in our next story, both stewardship and conservation have long been a part of Ojibwe traditions in Wisconsin.

It's a team effort, guys.

So we want to make sure we we get some fish, we do a good job.

And who's excited?

Everybody's excited.

Yeah.

We've been asked to help out here in the Lac Courte Oreilles community to take out some of our tribal youth.

Out spearfishing this evening.

Out on the Chippewa flowage.

Spearfishing is a traditional form of harvest that our people have conducted for many, many generations.

It's a practice where we actually harvest fish at nighttime.

We we harvest what we call Ogaawag, walleye and other types, certain species of fish during this time period in the spring.

And.

And harvest them with a spear.

(Music) Before we go, we'll be talking to them about the history of this place here.

We'll talk a little bit about treaty rights.

Right.

Why we're why we're still able to carry out these practices.

We'll also have a segment, too, about safety.

Very important that we maintain safety over while we're out here.

Our youth will be issued their permits and then we'll be we'll be going out on the lake and they'll be we'll be spearing fish.

(Cheering) (Music) These teachings were passed down from generation to generation.

We use a lot of contemporary material these days to harvest our Ogaawag.

A long time ago they were in birch bark canoes and they used a torch.

Nowadays we have boats and headlamps to harvest our Ogaawag.

It's important for our communities to revitalize these practices and to keep them going.

Number one, the food sources that come from these harvesting activities are really good for our communities.

Many times our tribal nations, you know, aren't harvesting just for themselves, right?

They're utilizing the fish from these waters to to feed elders, to feed single mothers, to feed our children or use to to feed people that that need that good nourishment in those food sources in their lives.

The fish also get utilized at ceremonies and other cultural practices where it's very much appropriate to have those types of foods.

Now.

We live very busy lifestyles these days, and I think it's very important that we always take moments like this to, you know, take a breath, reflect and spend time outdoors.

Because a lot of our health both, you know, you know, physical, mental, even spiritual health derives from our environment that we that we live in.

And so it's a it's a good reminder that these types of events remind us to put away our phones, you know, get off the computer, get away from the TV and spend some time out here where our people and our ancestors have been for for thousands of years.

Conservation efforts are so important when it comes to making sure our land, water and wildlife stay healthy.

After all, we want future generations to enjoy them as much as we do.

For more on conservation as it relates to the topic at hand, Elk here's into the outdoors animal facts with Josh.

Thanks Zach.

Elk are quite the conservationists themselves.

They live in all sorts of habitats, forests, meadows and deserts, so they can eat all kinds of different plants.

A single Elk can't do this all on its own.

Elk travel in large herds.

So if you see one out, you're likely to see even more.

The largest herd on record was 11,000 elk strong traveling from Wyoming to Yellowstone.

And now you know your elk.

Stay tuned for more after the break.

(Elk Call) From the original 25 Elk that were released in Wisconsin.

There are now nearly 400.

But the story doesn't end there.

There's tons of work still being done to protect these animals and their habitats.

We're here with Josh, a wildlife biologist, to tell us more.

Josh, how do you track elk that live in Wisconsin?

Sure.

There's a couple different ways we do it.

The little more complex way is we do what's called triangulation.

It's a base of telemetry in which we shoot bearings and lines from a set point location to determine where an elk is.

Another way we do it is the use of GPS tracking collars.

These collars are actually dual purpose and allow us to do both the new and older technology.

These collars are fitted on elk.

We try to have a couple per group and that group tends to move around, allowing us to see where they're hanging out.

So why do we track Elk in the first place?

Great question.

So a couple of the main reasons we track elk are to figure out what habitat features they like, where they use what they thrive in.

A lot of our habitat features are dual purpose, both from feeding and grazing to protection.

Hiding elk are a herd style animal.

It's a safety in numbers type situation, so having multiple collars on the landscape covers these different groups and where they move.

Another reason is to track the longevity and life of these animals.

This information will turn around and and give us data on where they like to hang out seasonality wise and throughout the life cycle that elk as they move throughout.

It gives us an idea of what habitats they prefer and what type or what parts of the year they prefer that habitat in.

Data on locations and the types of habitat the elk live in allow Josh and others to make decisions about the landscape that can benefit the herds, like forest management, prescribed burns and the mowing of grass.

Now let's get a closer look at the tech that makes all of this possible.

So what we have here are the tracking collars that we place on our elk.

On the left here, you can see the variable high frequency collars.

These collars are fixed on the elk, and they put out a beeping tone that can differentiate whether that elk is moving or not.

What we're going to in recent years here is a dual function GPS collar.

So this has the ability to give us GPS points, once every 13 hours and also run 12 hours of daytime VHF so we can still track them in the field real time if we need to.

On the last collar over here, we have two smaller ones.

These are the collars that we deploy on our calves, and this collar actually expands as that calf grows.

You can see some of the pleating that's popped.

The collars kind of look like giant dog collars and kind of almost like they're for a cow.

Look how big this is.

So you've got all these collars.

How do you tell the difference between elk?

Each collar is set with a designated frequency, and that frequency is going to be specific to each elk that we have one deployed on.

So each one of those collars is almost like a thumb print, a phone number for that particular elk.

I'm glad I don't have one of those collars on, otherwise people will be able to find me lickety split.

Now that we know how the contract can go, try to find one.

Sure.

I'll use this receiver and our handheld antenna and we'll take a hike down this trail.

(Music) So go ahead and point that up and you're going to point that towards the elk, but you'll want to want to kind of wave it around and see where that signal strength is the strongest.

So how would we know if the elk are nearby?

So much like the truck, that receiver picks up that frequency of those elk and that beeping sound is going to get louder the closer you get to it.

After we had been tracking.

It was so cool to see a herd off in the distance and get a true understanding of how big they really are.

And that was very cool.

I've seen really big deer before, but the Elk are on a whole nother level.

Well, I don't know about you, but I think we answered our viewer's question and learned a lot about Elk and Wisconsin's Native American tribes along the way.

I mean, who knew that a species could disappear and then be brought back through conservation efforts and stewardship?

Well, now we know and so do you.

Thanks for watching and we'll see you next time.

On into the outdoors.

(music) “Grab your gear and” “Lets explore.” “As we discover” “The wild outdoors.” “Science.

Discovery.” “Is what we do.” “You can make our Earth.” “A bright and better planet.” “By joining us.” “In this wide open space.” “Into the Outdoors.” The following organizations have provided funding for this Into the Outdoors television series.