The elk were not moved by the recent storms that turned the White Wolf Mine into a ‘winter wonderland. This is a select set of photos (telephoto) that reflect the general elk activity. Which isn’t much. They hang out, they paw the snow, they eat, mate (later in the year) and prepare to have calves in springtime. Yearlings are still running with the herd, staying close to their mothers, but it’s evident that they’re being weaned.
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| sentinel |
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| cow and calf |
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| troublemaker |
They are magnificent creatures, in addition to being good eating! 🙂
Looking quite tasty! 🙂
Wapiti are good for… eating!
You & the grandkids should go shed hunting, tis the season.
I have to 2nd Linda's motion.
Smart beasts and aggressive. One winter had an old bull climb on the hay wagon I was feeding our livestock from. Used the axe on board for chopping out frozen bales and split his head open. They usually stayed on the mountain across the river from us. They seemed to shy from frozen water. Guess that old bull was an exception.
Did we eat him? No, called the Game Warden who hauled the carcass away.
They're about 100% larger than a white tail deer, and the bulls are about 300% larger. If I had a trail of apples, into my garage, I could stuff a whole herd in there. They are a greedy lot.
I might hunt shed antlers when the snow abates. Right now we're in the grip of global cooling.
A forrest ranger told me that there were on the order of at least 100,000 elk in the Coconino National forrest – maybe more. Nobody knows and they reproduce heartily.
You have to draw to get a tag. I don't know if that applies to an elk that walks into your garage?
You clearly did the legal thing… I never knew that you were THAT law abiding, WSF.
I've only seen them while we were driving through Rocky Mountain National Forest.
The wife wanted to know "What are those BIG deer?", and she still hasn't lived it down.
City gal…..
Old bull, middle of winter? Hamburger.
Elk burger works. Even an elk/beef blend? But I get where you're coming from. Elk think that they own the forrest.
She can be excused.
I see them here about every other day. Sometimes one, sometimes half a dozen, sometimes twenty. All depends on the elk – and on me.
Thanks for a trip down memory lane.
Elk hamburger is best when tempered with beef suet by your butcher.
A fair number of years ago when I lived on the Oregon Coast, the Monday morning after regular season had closed, a friend knocked on my door as I was heading out for work. He asked if I would help him pack out an elk. I said, "Sure." Grabbed my pack frame and followed him to the killing ground.
Slaughter ground would be more appropriate.
He and two other men of my acquaintance had all filled cow tags about three miles out of town. Big old cows.
Roosevelt elk make Rocky Mountain elk look like elk wannabes.
The sun was just setting as I humped the last hindquarter of the last elk to the truck.
Youth is truly fleeting.
Took her over a year to stop saying "OH! Look at the deer!" whenever we saw them.
Only took her a couple of weeks to go from spotting to hating all the damn Canada Geese we have here…..
How beautifull!
When the geese are in American airspace, I just call them geese… North of the Border, Canadian geese… (haha)
Age and experience has taught me that picking your elk is important if you want to enjoy the feast later. I have also learned that if you walked a long way to bag that trophy, it's a VERY long way back to the rig, a quarter at a time, and hope that coyotes or wolves or a lion, etc. don't get into your elk while you're humping that quarter out.
Roosevelt elk are beyond my experience, but Rocky Mountain elk are large enough.
Texas elk are even larger because everything is bigger in Texas ;^)
I see them up here about every other day, Jules. There will be even more in summer when they've all migrated up to higher elevations (where I am).
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