Black bears, panthers and elk—David Maehr was an expert on all three and, he had a passion for restoring these animals to their native habitat. He spent four years in Kentucky working to restore elk to country that was once full of them. Those elk are now part of his legacy.
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David Maehr, front left, evaluating a young black bear. (courtesy of Archbold Biological Station) |
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Maehr, a professor of wildlife and conservation biology at the University of Kentucky, died in a plane crash on June 20. He and pilot Mason Smoak were close friends and were monitoring radio-collared black bears near Lake Placid, Florida, when the single-engine plane went down.
As a wildlife biologist, Maehr began working with the Elk Foundation on Kentucky’s elk reintroduction in 1997. In the first year of the project, he helped transport 150 elk to the state. By the end of the four-year restoration effort, 1,551 elk had been relocated to Kentucky. The herd now numbers upwards of 7,500.
Maehr was a naturalist and an authority on restoring native animals to their original habitat. He co-wrote, Large Mammal Restoration: Ecological and Sociological Challenges in the 21st Century, which was inspired by his research with Kentucky elk.
“Wildlife was just one part of what he was passionate about,” says Karen Alexy, director of wildlife for the Kentucky Department of Fish and Wildlife Resources, who first worked with Maehr when she was a graduate student. “Maehr was a husband and father of two grown children and mentored hundreds of students. “He loved his students. He actually cared about their future and what they became,” says Alexy, who knew Maehr for more than 10 years. “There wasn’t much that he did that he wasn’t good at.”
Now, as Kentucky’s elk herd approaches the management goal of 10,000, the elk, the lucky hunters who draw a tag, and those who just like having elk around can thank David Maehr and his commitment to elk restoration in the East.