Rogue elk spotted in Ashland City

CHEATHAM COUNTY, Tenn. (WKRN) — Rutherford County had a zebra, Sumner County had a bear, and now, there’s an elk wandering around in Cheatham County.

Melody Dennis spotted the elk around 6 a.m. Tuesday near Frey Street. She was pulling out of her subdivision when she came across the unexpected elk.

Dennis said she did a double take, explaining she’s seen elk before in Colorado but never in Middle Tennessee.

“Something I wasn’t expecting to see. You know, at six o’clock in the morning in Ashland City, you know, I see deer run across to there all the time. That’s not uncommon. I see them in my backyard, but this is I had to stop and look twice at this and then grab my phone to make sure I wasn’t seeing things. So it was definitely an elk,” said Dennis.

She posted her photos in a local Facebook group, which garnered a lot of attention. Some were skeptical the images were photoshopped or generated by AI, but she promises that’s not the case.

“Well, if they could ask my sons, they would probably be laughing at them, because I mean, I can’t edit a picture, much less photoshop one,” Dennis said. “I’m even lucky I know how to put it on my Facebook. They’re constantly showing me. My 5-year-old granddaughter can do more on a phone than I can, so it’s not photoshopped.”

The Tennessee Wildlife Resources Agency told News 2 its Cheatham County officer recognized the location and indicated there is a landowner in the area with elk on his property. The animal likely escaped his enclosure.

Wild elk roam freely in eastern Tennessee in the North Cumberland Management Area after the TWRA reintroduced the species into the state in the 1990s. Tennesseans can own elk with a permit from the Tennessee Department of Agriculture.