Elk/Red Deer mix killed in AL

[Bugflipper]

http://thedailysentinel.com/sports/article_c25dbf1c-0729-11e1-90db-001cc4c002e0.html
Officers with the Alabama Wildlife and Freshwater Fisheries Division killed an elk in Jackson County this week.
Captain Johnny Johnson of District I of the Alabama Department of Conservation and Natural Resources said the elk was put down by wildlife officers near the Jackson-Madison County line near Gurley on Tuesday.
Johnson said officers received a call from a landowner that the elk was on his property. Officers killed the animal for safety precautions, Johnson said, adding the elk will be tested for Chronic Wasting Disease, a progressive neurodegenerative disorder that produces spongiform changes in the brain and chronic weight loss that leads to death in deer and elk.
"You hate to kill an animal like that, but the health of the native deer herd takes precedence," Johnson said. "We don't think it did (have CWD), but if it did, it could be devastating.
"It was also a safety concern for humans out on the roadway."
Wildlife and fisheries first got reports about the animal approximately six weeks ago, with the initial spotting coming near the Cullman County town of Hanceville. Officers tracked the animal's progress through eyewitness accounts and game cameras.
Johnson said the elk moved from Cullman into Morgan County, where it swam across the Tennessee River and was a later spotted in Limestone County. Later reports came in from north Madison County before the elk was seen Tuesday in Jackson County.
"It had took a fence down on the landowner's farm," Johnson said. "The officers found it pretty quickly."
Johnson said the elk is believed to have escaped from an enclosure, though no one has reported one missing. It was a cross between an elk and a red deer, another strong indication it likely came from an enclosure. Elk primarily reside in the western part of the United States.

[Almtnman]

I think that I have read something in the past that there is a enclosed hunting preserve in Cullman county, so it could have got out of there.