Rocky Mountain Bull Elk
by Priscilla Burgers
Title
Rocky Mountain Bull Elk
Artist
Priscilla Burgers
Medium
Photograph - Photography
Description
Image is a late afternoon winter shot of a bull elk at Rocky Mountain National Park in Colorado. North American elk, or wapiti, were once plentiful in the Rocky Mountain National Park area. As Euro- Americans settled the Estes Valley, they hunted elk intensively, sending much of the meat to market in Denver. By 1890 few, if any, elk remained. In 1913 and 1914, before the establishment of the park, the Estes Valley Improvement Association and United States Forest Service transplanted 49 elk from Yellowstone National Park to this area. Around the same time, an all-out effort began to eliminate predators, including the gray wolf and the grizzly bear. The resulting decrease in predators probably hastened the recovery of Rocky's elk population. Today, Elk number about 1 million in North America. Currently, the Park's elk population fluctuates between 600 and 800 in the winter. Accelerating development along the park boundary is diminishing open space and blocking traditional migration routes, thus decreasing winter forage and habitat.
Elk are more than twice as heavy as mule deer and have a more reddish hue to their hair coloring, as well as large, buff colored rump patches and smaller tails. During the fall, elk grow a thicker coat of hair, which helps to insulate them during the winter. Males, females and calves of Siberian and North American elk all grow thin neck manes. By early summer, the heavy winter coat has been shed, and elk are known to rub against trees and other objects to help remove hair from their bodies. All elk have small and clearly defined rump patches with short tails. They have different coloration based on the seasons and types of habitats, with gray or lighter coloration present in the winter and a more reddish, darker coat in the summer. Moose are larger and darker than elk; bulls have distinctively different antlers. Elk gather in herds, while moose are solitary. Bull elk are 40% larger than cows at maturity, weighing an average of 710 to 730 pounds. Dominant bulls follow groups of cows during the rut, from August into early winter. A bull will defend his harem of 20 cows or more from competing bulls and predators. Only mature bulls have large harems and breeding success peaks at about eight years of age. Bulls between two to four years and over 11 years of age rarely have harems, and spend most of the rut on the periphery of larger harems. Young and old bulls that do acquire a harem hold it later in the breeding season than do bulls in their prime. A bull with a harem rarely feeds and he may lose up to 20 percent of his body weight. Bulls that enter the rut in poor condition are less likely to make it through to the peak conception period or have the strength to survive the rigors of the oncoming winter
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Uploaded
September 21st, 2013
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