Elk in Kansas are hunted primarily on 101,000-acre Fort Riley Army Base, where about 20 tags are issued by lottery each year. Two other herds are protected — a captive herd in a 2,200-acre high-fenced enclosure at Maxwell Wildlife Refuge east of McPherson and a small herd in Morton County, almost entirely on Cimarron National Grassland in the southwestern corner of the state. Elsewhere in the state elk may be hunted by holders of tags sold over the counter, but animals are few, scattered and roam widely. A small number of bulls have been sighted and photographed along the Ninnescah River system in Kingman, Pratt and Reno counties, and individual bulls or small herds have been seen in at least 20 other counties, including Chase, Cloud, Coffee, Dickinson, Ellsworth, Ford, Hamilton, Kiowa, Lincoln, Lyon, Marion, Marshall, Mitchell, Nemaha, Ottawa, Republic, Saline, Sedgwick, Stafford and Wilson.

Elk were common in Kansas when the first explorers and trappers arrived. The Lewis and Clark expedition in 1805, for example, reported, “Elk are plenty about these Praries [sic].” Commercial and subsistence hunters killed so many animals that by 1900 the elk were gone. In 1951 the state transported a few elk from the Wichita Mountains National Wildlife Refuge in Oklahoma Maxwell Wildlife Refuge. In 1981 state officials decided to release some of the elk from that growing herd upon the Cimarron National Grassland. The animals roamed freely, quickly multiplying and spreading onto private lands and even into Oklahoma and Colorado. Those states held seasons to eliminate those elk. Kansas opened a resident-only season in 1987 to keep the herds in check and to prevent crop damage. Nowadays there is no season in the grassland.

In 1986 the game department transported 12 elk from Maxwell Wildlife Refuge to Fort Riley, where they were released to open range. From 1987 to 1994 another 47 elk from Colorado, Montana and South Dakota were released at Fort Riley, most of them near Madison Creek. For several years the animals stayed in that area and then began spreading. The herd in 1998 grew to an estimated 250 animals, but was reduced to its current level, which varies from an estimated 125 to 175 elk.

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Units and permits

Currently the state is divided into four elk hunting units as follows:

Unit 1 is part of Morton County, where no elk hunting is allowed.

Unit 2 is the area around Fort Riley Army Base, including parts of Clay, Dickinson, Riley and Gear counties. An unlimited number of tags are available to landowners for their personal hunting and cannot be transferred. Resident hunters may buy cow elk tags over the counter. A small number of elk are taken outside the base.

Unit 2A is Fort Riley. The state issues by computer lottery about 20 either-sex tags a year along with antlerless tags whose numbers vary according to herd size. Hunting has been allowed since 1990. Tags are divided between resident hunters and military personnel. Typically there are 8,000-10,000 applicants a year.

Unit 3 is the rest of the state. Resident hunters may buy antlerless tags over the counter. Either-sex tags are sold on an unlimited basis over the counter to landowners who hunt on their own land and may not be transferred.