CHEROKEE, N.C. — Traveling to a popular destination like Great Smoky Mountains National Park, you might grow accustom to the everyday traffic jam. But one person caught a rather spectacular type of Western North Carolina traffic jam recently.
Dean Cloer shared two videos of a large herd of elk that stopped vehicles as they sauntered across a highway in Cherokee, North Carolina.
Cloer said the elk were paying Saunooke Village a visit on Jan. 3, 2022, crossing Highway 441 near Great Smoky Mountains National Park.
In the videos, you can see several stopped cars as some elk saunter across the highway and others begin running. Some elk stay on the side of the roadway to graze in the green grass.
Elk sightings have become more common in the last few years, especially since their reintroduction into Great Smoky Mountains National Park over 20 years ago.
Officials with the National Park Service and the Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation released 25 elk in February of 2001. The next year they released another 27. It started out as an experiment to bring back the native species which was run out by European settlers and overhunting in the late 1700's.
Ever since then, wildlife officials say the population has continued to grow slow but steady in the mountain region.