The Pennsylvania Game Commission has unveiled a new wildlife web-camera focused on a corner of southern Elk County and, with a little bit of luck, the elk that call it home.
The camera overlooking a corner of Winslow Hill in Benezette, on State Game Lands 311, was unveiled this week and comes after a series of similar web-cameras, including one poised in an Hanover eagle’s nest, helped draw millions of online viewers to the Game Commission’s site.
With the new elk cam, video and audio are being streamed live at www.pgc.state.pa.us and will continue until the end of bugling season, likely sometime in October.
In addition to viewing the animals in their natural habitat, the audio feed will allow viewers to hear the bugling, the distinct and almost indescribable soundtrack of the mating or rut season.
The field chosen on Winslow Hill is reportedly off-limits to people and a favorite of the herd. It is also near to a new $500,000 viewing area dedicated last week and meant to cut down on gridlock at the site, a popular pull-off for visitors to the area hoping to spot elk along the roadway.
As of Wednesday, bull elk, turkeys, deer and other wildlife had already made appearances on the webcam’s live stream, with sightings said to be most common in the afternoon.
As the Associated Press pointed out, the camera will give the public unprecedented access to the herd and allow many to view the animals from the comfort of their home.
But rather than drawing visitors away, many hope the camera and web-stream will instead boost visits to the area by piquing interest in viewers keen on spotting the animals in the flesh.
In 2014, more than 400,000 wildlife enthusiasts came to the Winslow Hill portion of State Game Lands 311 and the nearby Elk Country Visitor Center to view elk, the Game Commission says.
The elk cam is provided by HDOnTap, a company that also provided live video from the bald eagle’s nest in Hanover, as well as video from osprey and bluebird nests around the state in recent years.
The elk herd now on the other end of its lens is itself the result of a Game Commission project nearly 100 years in the making and one meant to rebuild or replace a native population hunted to near extinction throughout the 19th century.
The initiative saw elk transported from overgrown western herds in Yellowstone National Park and the Jackson Hole Refuge Area to northcentral Pennsylvania.
In 1915, barely two years after the first elk were released, the Game Commission says 95 elk were released in six counties including Cameron, Carbon, Potter and Forest.
At last check, the region’s herd had blossomed to roughly 1,000 with the number mostly focused in Cameron and southern Elk counties.
