Eastern elk

The eastern elk (Cervus canadensis canadensis) was an extinct subspecies, or distinct population, of elk that once inhabited the northern and eastern United States and southern Canada. The last confirmed eastern elk was shot in Pennsylvania on September 1, 1877, and the United States Fish and Wildlife Service officially declared the subspecies extinct in 1880; a related subspecies, Merriam elk, disappeared around the same period. Its historic range covered the Eastern Woodlands forests west to the Mississippi River. There is ongoing debate about its true status: in 2017 the International Union for Conservation of Nature reclassified most North American elk subspecies as Cervus canadensis canadensis, raising the possibility that the eastern population was not truly a separate extinct form but is represented today by Rocky Mountain elk reintroduced to eastern regions during the twentieth century.