I am invited to hunt at a ranch in the Hill Country of Texas.
The property owner says that Texas Parks & Wildlife forced another property owner to release 20 elk. (I was not given the reason for the release).
The hunting location I will be on has a game camera that has shown at least one of the elk on the property.
I can't seem to find out if it is legal to shoot one of those elk. The game warden says he has no information on elk hunting in the area, except on "exotics" places.
Anyone else hear about these elk.

Fire away if you see any elk, as there is no closed season on them in Texas and there are a decent number of them in the Hill Country that have escaped from high fence ranches. I saw four on a low fence ranch adjacent to the low fence ranch I was hunting on near Rock Springs a few years ago. If they had jumped the fence and come on the property I was on I would have nailed one of them!

Be really careful on this one. To the best of my knowledge Elk are not considered Game Animals in Texas. They are or were considered livestock or exotic animals. I really doubt that TP&W ordered anyone to release such animals from private land on to other private lands.

I think you should contact Texas Parks & Wildlife Dept. and ask them for more information. JMO.

A friend of mine has elk on his place
and he hunts them year round.
He owns them as far as I can tell.

It's my understanding as they are classified as livestock as ch said and no license needed if hunted on private land.

No different than free range axis.....fire away.

Choot Em!

It's a bit more complicated.

There is no closed season in most Texas counties, but there are a few counties in far West Texas (and maybe still a couple in the Panhandle) which have free-ranging elk herds which where hunting is regulated.

A central Texas county would be unregulated for elk hunting and they would be treated as "exotics", meaning that it is legal to hunt them at any time and by any means if you are the owner or if they are unowned. This is where it gets dicey. If the animal is eartagged or can be otherwise identified then it may be treated as stray livestock. You have no more right to shoot a man's elk than to shoot his cow when it strays onto your property, although the owner has an obligation to make reasonable effort to keep it on his own property and to remove strays from your property at his expense if you so demand.

The story that some officials "forced another property owner to release 20 elk" sounds fishy, so I would approach this with caution. However, if the elk are truly feral, have been present for some amount of time and no effort has been made by anyone to claim ownership or to retrieve them, then they are like any free-roaming non-game animal and it would be legal for you to take them.

Okay, here is the official clarification concerning Elk in Texas. This is directly from the TP&W website.

Exotic Animals and Fowl

Exotic animal refers to grass-eating or plant-eating, single-hoofed or cloven-hoofed mammals that are not indigenous or native to Texas and are known as ungulates, including animals from the deer and antelope families that landowners have introduced into this state. Includes, but is not limited to feral hog, Aoudad sheep, Axis deer, Elk , Sika deer, Fallow deer, Blackbuck antelope, Nilgai antelope, and Russian boar. Exotic fowl refers to any avian species that is not indigenous to this state, including ratites (emu, ostrich, rhea, cassowary, etc.).

There are no state bag or possession limits or closed seasons on exotic animals or fowl on private property. It is against the law to:
•Hunt an exotic without a valid hunting license.
•Hunt an exotic on a public road or right-of-way.
•Hunt an exotic without the landowner's permission.
•Possess an exotic or the carcass of an exotic without the owner's consent.

Just like Axis, aoudad and such. Any means any time.....

Hunting license and landowner permission of course.

It wasn't listed in the information I posted, but in Texas, a Non-Resident can hunt exotics legally on a 5 day license, Type 157 for $48.00.

Crazyhorse: What you quote from the TP&W handbook is accurate. However, the breeders of exotic wildlife asked the legislature for protection of their property rights when such wildlife strayed from their property. So the legislature included such exotics in the portion of the law governing stray livestock:

Sec. 142.0021. OWNERSHIP OF EXOTIC WILDLIFE AND FOWL. A person may claim to be the owner of exotic livestock or exotic fowl under this chapter only if the animal is tagged, branded, banded, or marked in another conspicuous manner that can be read or identified from a long distance and that identifies the animal as being the property of the claimant.

So, as I said earlier, if an elk has a visible ear tag, then unless the owner of the property it is located on has gone through the "estray notification process" and no one has claimed the animal, you could buy some trouble by shooting it. Just make sure that there is no dispute over the ownership of an exotic before taking it.

I might add parenthetically that it is very rare for someone to successfully claim ownership of a stray exotic (at least one which has been at large for some extended period of time), much less to hold a hunter liable for taking such a "strayed" exotic. But it would be very disconcerting for some guy on the adjacent property to swear out a complaint against you and sue you in small claims court for the value of the animal. You would in all likelihood "win" in the long run, but in the short run just the hassle would make you a "loser".

But, because of the instances you are listing, with few exceptions or really strange ones, the odds for getting in trouble are going to be extremely low.

Most if not all landowners know which of their neighbors are raising exotics and will know whether the animal is available to be shot.

I work with a herd of 23 buffalo and the estray law protecting them only recently was enacted here in Texas.

Also, I believe it would be the land owner that would be the one looking at trouble if he gave someone on his property to shoot an animal that he was aware of being an escapee from another property. I know that is picking nits and it is better to be safe than sorry, but I believe the odds of running into a problem are really small.

I was at a Mule Deer Foundation dinner in Fort Stockton last year, and met a few guys who guided for elk on huge ( to me!) spreads, 200,000acres or so. Big elk herds out toward Alpine. I reckon they do all they can to keep those critters from wandering ( including truckloads of protein pellets).

There are some nice elk in Texas, These are near Big Spring. Dr.C