The Good, the Bad and the Wapiti - While elk are returning to their former haunts in the East, they are the focus of concern and controversy in the West

The mud-cakedbull elk thrashes the brush with his antlers, then sprays his belly with urine. His sides heave with heavy breath. The animal's massive neck, swelled far beyond normal size, tilts back. Finally, the sound comes-at first deep and chesty, then rising to high, buglelike notes that shatter the Arkansas autumn silence.

Arkansas? Yes. And Kentucky, Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin and other surprising places, too, as a species once almost extinct expands its domain. "Elk have become a really big deal," says Glen Matthews, a biologist with the Michigan Department of Natural Resources. "Returning them to the East is an idea whose time has come."

In the West, however, a new disease lurks in the shadows, raising a threat to continued elk prosperity. And in Yellowstone National Park, elk have sparked a controversy by potentially overgrazing some of the country's most important wildlife habitat. For rather reclusive animals, elk certainly manage to keep scientists, conservationists and wildlife managers hopping.

North American elk are generally considered to be the same species as the red deer of Asia and Europe. Among their American relatives, elk are second in size only to moose: An adult bull may stand 5 feet tall at the shoulder, weigh as much as 1,000 pounds and support massive antlers. Females, called cows, are shorter and perhaps 200 pounds lighter. Mostly tan or brown, elk sport a distinctively white rump-for which the Shawnee named them wapiti.

Elk can live in many habitats, from rugged mountains to desert valleys to hardwood forests. Though primarily grazers of grass, they also eat other plants-including parts of trees, especially in winter. Wapiti are gregarious, often forming sizable herds. In the fall, bulls compete for breeding rights, with each would-be patriarch attempting to establish his own harem. The rut is marked by occasional antler-clashing duels and the bulls' frequent bugles, a blend of whistles and screams.

An estimated 10 million elk once occupied part of every continental state except Florida and Alaska, but European settlers and market shooters decimated the herds. By the late 1800s, only about 50,000 elk remained, mostly in the Yellowstone area, and wapiti appeared headed for extinction.

Early in the last century, however, federal and state protections, habitat improvements and relocations set the stage for a comeback, and today America is home to about 1 million elk. Most of these belong to the Rocky Mountain subspecies, but there also are populations of tule elk in California, Manitoba elk in Canada and Roosevelt elk-the largest of all-in Pacific Coast forests from California to British Columbia.

Most elk live in the 11 westernmost contiguous states, but relocation projects have placed wapiti in 12 other states. While some relocations date from the early 1900s, many are recent. Kentucky's ambitious project-1,800 elk to be released over nine years and an eventual population of perhaps 10,000-began in 1997. Wisconsin got its elk in 1995 and elk were relocated to Arkansas in the 1980s. States such as New York, Missouri, Tennessee and Virginia may soon start elk herds.

Why the surge in elk interest? One of the main movers is the Montana- based Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation, a private conservation group that provides expertise and money-$1.5 million to date-for relocation projects. In addition, the public welcomes new wildlife-watching opportunities. "Elk are huge, attractive, eye-popping animals, and people love having them around," says Michael Cartwright of the Arkansas Game and Fish Commission.

In most eastern elk states, the autumn rut has become a significant tourist attraction. The town of Atlanta, Michigan, prides itself on being the elk capital of the state and holds an annual elk festival. In Pennsylvania, elk are responsible for the opening of new stores, campgrounds, lodging facilities, art shops and trail-ride concessions- to the tune of $1.7 million annually, according to Pennsylvania State University. "Elk are a very big deal here," says Rawley Cogan, a biologist with the Pennsylvania Game Commission.

But having elk around presents problems, too. Michigan wapiti occasionally stop traffic by grazing on the median of busy Interstate 75, and elk once ate all the plastic flowers off graves in a Kentucky cemetery. Other bluegrass wapiti strayed onto a golf course, where a bull repeatedly pulled flagsticks from their holes while his companions stomped around the greens. "Elk track depressions can make putting a real challenge," says Jon Gassett, a wildlife biologist with the Kentucky Department of Fish and Wildlife.

The most serious conflicts arise when wapiti get hungry, which is quite often. An adult elk needs 15 to 20 pounds of food per day-and isn't shy about getting it from orchards, vineyards, haystacks and crops. Occasionally, farmers take matters into their own hands. In 1999, a Pennsylvania vegetable farmer refused free fencing, then shot 10 elk (nearly 2 percent of the state's entire population) because they damaged his crops. And it was all legal, thanks to a state law allowing farmers to kill crop-destroying wildlife.