Eastern Elk- (wapiti)-Cervus Canadensis Canadensis, extinct since 1877.
Really a giant form of European reindeer, the eastern elk was numerous and extensive, being the most widespread of all american hoofed animals. As one authority pointed out their enormous range could be mapped by plotting the cities, counties, creeks and rivers named after it. But by the beginning of the nineteenth century human population pressures, loss of habitat, demand for meat and the sport in the east of running down the elk on horseback had taken its toll.
It had already vanished north of the Canadian border but it was the fetish of elk teeth used as insignia by the fraternal order of elks, which caused the exacting toll. The famous half-breed elk hunter Jim Jacobson shot the last pure eastern elk on September first 1877 in Pennsylvania.