Elk Hunting Tips:
An impressive trophy Rocky Mountain Elk is the dream of many
hunters. Your pro elk hunting guide usually lives in and
scouts the elk herd in his given area, so they are the best
source for elk hunting insights for a successful hunt. As
grandpa said, PPPPP (Prior Planning Prevents Poor Performance)
These are just some basic pointers to keep in mind:
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Off season scouting is imperative to a successful Elk hunt.
If you are unable to scout your hunting area, you may be
dependent on your pro hunting guide to make sure they know the
elk herd's feeding areas, bedding areas and travel routes.
Make sure they have this covered!
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Spot and stalk is usually the method of hunting for the
Rocky Mountain Elk. Spot and stalk hunters should be in
reasonably good physical condition. Even if you are a fit
person, hiking in higher altitudes can be quite taxing.
Prepare for your Elk hunt by getting in peak physical condition,
hiking outside and up an incline if possible. (Check with
your physician before engaging in strenuous exercise).
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Using a Bugle Call or cow call is oftentimes used to attract
the largest bull Elk. Study the most effective Elk calling
techniques used in the area you plan to hunt. Your pro elk
hunting guide should be able to instruct you in this. If
your hunt is fully guided, your guide may have this detail
covered. When a bull elk bugles, he is advertising for a
sweetheart, not a fight. Sometimes he may bugle if he has
been rejected by a potential mate. And other times, bulls
answer each other, attempting to show dominance. It may
seem that a large bull elk would sound off with a echoing bugle,
but that not ALWAYS the case. Sometimes larger, older
bulls don't sound the way they look.
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Just as you should be in good physical condition, your
hunting equipment should be also. Put careful thought into
what gear you will need. Start at your head with proper
binoculars and go down to your feet, considering lightweight and
protective footgear. And remember to be in good practice
with your weapon. Shoot often and from various distances,
whether you plan to use a gun or a bow, so it is like second
nature to you. Traveling with your rifle can effect your
scope and accuracy of your weapon, so sight in and practice
before leaving for your hunt.
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Never hunt alone, especially in unfamiliar territory.
Take a GPS if you have one, but for backup, take a compass and topo map.
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Drink a lot of water. Not cokes or coffee, but water.
This will not only keep you hydrated, but also cut down on
altitude sickness and headaches when Elk hunting.
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A successful Elk hunt starts with daily habits you may not
have thought about. First, address the phenomenal ability of a
Rocky Mountain Elk to 'wind' a human. NO SMOKING, and some
people even avoid coffee prior to a elk hunt. What are you
washing your hunting clothes in? Is your deodorant scented? Do
your hunting boots, well, smell like hunting boots? What did you
eat for breakfast at camp (Hopefully nobody decided to cook
bacon for breakfast!) Perfumed washing powder, scented shampoos
and soaps can be a killer for your elk hunt. In addition to
covering your scent, there are hundreds of products designed to
attract the elk to your area. Find out what works best for the
time of year you are planning your hunt. Store you hunting
clothes in a large plastic bag to protect them from camp cooking
odors. Some hunters actually put a small amount of dirt in
the bag, and a few apples, to disguise the scent.
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Leave the camp early, and stay in the stand late. Beat
the competition to the hunting area, and don't be in a hurry to
get back to camp. The hunters arriving later than you may
serve as a driving force, moving the elk to your area. Elk
travel through the day, so don't assume they are done moving
early. If they are feeling pressured, the will be
traveling to safety to bed.
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Following the elk rut and before deep snows move into the
high country, look for big bulls up in higher elevations. A rule
of thumb is "the higher the elevation, the bigger the bull". The
reason for this is that mature bulls are very solitary animals
following the rut and will seek out secluded areas where they
can recover, feed, and be left alone. Younger bull elk are often
found lower down the mountain and may even be found on the
fringe of a herd of cows.
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If it is extremely cold while you are hunting, that may
increase herd movement. The elk require more food when it
is cold, and they will need to move around to find it.
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Caring for your trophy elk - Your pro guide will be
knowledgeable in this area, but talk to your local taxidermist
about how much cape (hide) you will need if you plan on mounting
your trophy elk. You will actually need a lot more cape
than you think you'll need to get a full shoulder mount.
If you are planning on tanning the hide, the cuts will be
totally different. Know what you want to do with the elk
before you bust out your knife. Always keep the animal as
cool as possible while transporting. Elk is a healthy and
delicious meat to eat. Check into recipes and marinating
techniques from chefs experienced in how to properly prepare
elk.
 Elk
Range
Elk:
Elk Hunting
The North American elk, or wapiti,
is the largest form of the red deer species
Cervus elaphus. "Elk" is
the name by which most Canadians know this majestic deer.
"Wapiti," meaning "white rump," is the Shawnee Indian name and the
common name preferred by scientists, because the animal known as
an "elk" in Europe is not a red deer at all but a close relative
of the North American moose. Other red deer, smaller and belonging
to several subspecies, are found throughout the northern
hemisphere: in Scotland and continental Europe, in North Africa,
and in Asia.
In general appearance elk are
obviously kin to the well-known white-tailed deer. However, elk
are much larger. Among Canadian deer, they are second in size only
to the moose. An adult bull elk stands about 150 cm tall at the
shoulder and weighs about 300-350 kg, although some large bulls
approach 500 kg in late summer before the rut. Cows are
substantially smaller but still have a shoulder height of 135 cm
and an adult weight of around 250 kg.
The colour of the elk's coat ranges from reddish brown in summer
to dark brown in winter. Although it looks white from a distance,
on closer inspection the rump colour is ivory to orange. In
contrast to the rump, the head and neck are dark. Elk have long,
blackish hair on the neck that is referred to as a mane.
Their hooves are rounded and their tracks may be confused with
those of yearling cattle in range country. Their droppings, like
those of other deer, are in the form of pellets in winter, but in
summer, when the animals are on new green forage, resemble those
of cattle. Closer inspection, however, reveals traces of a pellet
structure.
Male elk are notable for their
impressively large antlers. It is amazing that these large
structures are grown new each year by the animals in a period of a
few months in spring and summer. Antlers look particularly large
in summer when they are encased in velvet -- a covering that
protects the growing antlers. In later summer, the velvet is
rubbed from the fully grown antlers and the boney structure is
revealed. Newly cleaned antlers are light grey in colour but
become stained by rubbing and thrashing vegetation during the
excitement of the rutting season. (Rutting is an annual state of
sexual excitement in the male deer.)
Unlike other deer, elk have upper canine, or "eye," teeth. These
teeth are a hangover from earlier evolutionary stages and now
serve no apparent purpose. Their smooth rounded surface has made
them attractive as jewellery. In the 1800s many elk were killed
just to obtain the canine teeth.
The elk is highly vocal for an ungulate. A person close to a group
of elk can hear frequent grunts and squeals as they keep in touch
with each other. When alarmed the cows give sharp barks to warn
the rest of the group. The whistling roar of rutting bulls is a
spine-tingling sound on a frosty autumn morning.
Diet
Elk are plant eaters. There are few
plants that occur on their range that they do not eat in certain
areas under certain conditions. In winter they eat grasses when
they can obtain them. However, when the snow gets deep, they
readily eat twigs of woody species, even the conifers like Douglas
fir. In spring, grasses and sedges are favourite foods. As the new
growth of broad-leaved herbaceous plants spring up in early
summer, elk include a high proportion of them in their diet. They
also consume shrub and tree twigs and leaves. Early summer is the
time of year when a wide variety of nutritious food is available
for elk: it is also the time when cow elk are providing milk for
their newborn calves.
As summer passes, the herbaceous plants dry out and elk turn again
to dry grasses and browse. When the frosty nights of autumn
arrive, leaves begin to fall in trembling aspen forests on the
western ranges of the elk. Elk include dry leaves in their diet
and continue to eat them until they are buried by snow. When
winter comes, elk diets are controlled largely by snow. Elk dig
craters in loose snow to expose dry grass and leaves, but when the
snow gets too deep or too hard they must shift their feeding
largely to woody twigs. In the mountains of Alberta and British
Columbia elk must leave areas of deep snow cover and seek
locations such as valley bottoms where snow cover is shallow or
absent. In areas where deep snow seldom occurs, they may frequent
high- or low- elevation ranges at any time of the year.
Life history
Elk are sociable animals. They are
seldom found without other elk nearby. The herd lifestyle is
characteristic of animals that live in open country. However, elk
populations today occupy forest or parkland regions, where small
groups averaging six or seven animals are common.
Elk are long-lived animals: males survive to an average of 14
years, whereas females live as long as 24 years. Although they may
travel widely, each elk is strongly attached to certain localities
within its home range. Some in fact have home ranges of only a few
square kilometres. Others have home ranges of several hundred
square kilometres, of which they use different parts during
different seasons. In the mountains such individuals often summer
in the high country and winter in the valleys. However, elk are
versatile animals and some may reverse this pattern or make visits
back to their summer range during winter, snow conditions
permitting, and down to winter range during summer. Others may
even switch between staying in a small area one year and using a
large area the next. Bulls may occupy a "rutting range," which is
separate from localities where they are found during the rest of
the year. Whatever their seasonal pattern, most elk use the same
ranges year after year.
The annual cycle of the elk begins
in spring with release from the snows and food shortage of winter.
This is the time of calving and increasing of the herds. Calving
usually occurs in areas with which the cow is very familiar. Some
cows may seek the same area to calve in year after year. Others
give both to their calves in whatever part of their home range
they happen to be in when the time comes. Whenever calving occurs,
the cows split off from other elk and seek seclusion and cover a
few days before giving birth.
Elk hide their calves for 10 days or more after they are born. The
calves are genetically programmed to remain quiet and concealed as
a defense against predators. Later, mother and offspring join
others in cow/calf bands on the summer range. Beginning in August,
the quiet summer life of the elk comes to an end with the start of
the rut.
The bulls, which have passed a lazy summer in small groups while
their antlers grew large and heavy, now move into the cow/calf
group and establish harems of cows. In the process there is
considerable fighting among the bulls. Large bulls eventually get
control of as many as 20 or 30 cows and drive other males to the
fringes of the herds. This does not mean, however, that the young
males are totally left out of the breeding. While the large harem
masters are running off intruders or rounding up straying females
on one side of their group, a young bull may sneak in and mate
with a female on the other side.
Following the turmoil of the rut, the bull elk leave the females
and move to good foraging areas to recoup their losses in weight
and condition before winter. Some go back up the mountains to
spend a few more weeks on the nutritious pastures of the alpine
zone before snow forces them down. Elk usually, but not always,
wait for coming of snow to move down to the valleys. There is
considerable overlap between the winter ranges of bulls and cows.
As bulls are larger and more powerful they can travel and dig
through deep snow more readily than the cows, and by doing so they
are able to have foraging areas to themselves.
Distribution
When Europeans arrived in Canada
and the US, elk were widely distributed. Their range extended
across southern Quebec, along the upper Saint Lawrence (where they
were probably one of the species recorded but ambiguously
described by Jacques Cartier), and into southern Ontario. Their
range continued around the northern margins of lakes Huron and
Superior and along the present American border from the Lakehead
to the prairies of Manitoba, but in these areas their populations
were sparse. Farther west, on the prairies of Manitoba,
Saskatchewan, and Alberta, and north into the southern fringes of
the boreal forest, elk were numerous. In British Columbia, elk
were found throughout the central and southern parts of the
province east of the Coast Range, in the Lower Mainland around the
mouth of the Fraser River and on Vancouver Island.
Relative to western populations, numbers of elk must have been low
in eastern North America, except in regions like western Kentucky
where the forests were interrupted by extensive grasslands. In any
case, hunting by Europeans, added to that by the indigenous
people, extirpated elk from the east, including southern Ontario
and Quebec, by the mid-1800s. Some elk may have survived in
Ontario north of Lake Huron.
Settlement of the Canadian prairies deprived the elk herds of
their habitat as it did the bison. However, scattered populations
continued to exist throughout the forest regions skirting the
prairies and in the mountains of the west.
Elk numbers were at their lowest around 1900 in North America.
Thereafter the pace of settlement in marginal areas slowed, market
hunting was greatly reduced, the number of people living
subsistence lifestyles declined, predators were reduced, and elk
received increasing legal protection. Also, large forest fires
caused by settlers converted substantial areas from forest to
grass, shrubs, and saplings, providing abundant forage for the
remaining elk.
Elk were also reintroduced to areas of former range. In Canada's
Rocky Mountains the small remaining elk population in Banff and
Jasper national parks was dramatically increased by several
hundred animals brought from Yellowstone National Park in the
United States between 1917 and 1920. Elk were also transplanted to
northern Ontario in the 1930s. In British Columbia elk were
introduced to the Queen Charlotte Islands and, in the Yukon, elk
were introduced northwest of Whitehorse in the early 1950s. The
Yukon herd has maintained its numbers but has not grown.
The present population of elk in Canada is about 72 000. Over half
(40 000) are in British Columbia, mostly in the Kootenays and in
the Peace-Omineca Region, but with a small population on Vancouver
Island. Alberta's 20 000 elk roam mainly in the Rocky Mountain
foothills and the mountain national parks of Banff, Jasper, and
Waterton. A scattered population exists in the parkland (where the
boreal forest meets the grassland) across central Alberta, where a
notable contribution to the survival of elk in Canada has been the
creation of Elk Island National Park. The park grew from a reserve
established in 1906 to protect a small band of remaining elk. The
elk thrived, and currently the fenced park of less than 200 km2
supports over 1000 elk as well as moose, bison, and white-tailed
deer. Elk Island has provided many elk for reintroductions and has
also served as a research area for study of the species.
Manitoba currently has a herd of around 7000 animals, whose
distribution centres on Riding Mountain National Park. The 5000
elk in Saskatchewan are mostly in the southern fringe of the
boreal forest north of Prince Albert.
Limits of population
The principal limiting factor on
the number of elk in Canada has been loss of habitat to
agriculture. Fortunately, extensive areas do remain to the elk.
Hunting serves to keep elk numbers within the carrying capacity of
the ranges. In parks elk numbers are sometimes reduced by capture
and transplant of surplus animals.
Aside from humankind the most important predator of elk is the
wolf. In spite of their size and power, elk are readily killed by
wolves. The distribution of elk in Canada overlaps with wolf
distribution, so most elk herds are culled to some extent by
wolves. Black bears also kill considerable numbers of elk. Recent
studies have demonstrated that in some areas black bears may kill
as many as 50% of the elk calves. This predation occurs during the
first two or three weeks of the calf's life. Once calves become
strong enough to keep up with their mothers, and mother and calf
rejoin the rest of the herd, most bear predation ceases. However,
grizzly bears may kill an occasional adult elk. Coyotes take some
calves, and cougars, which share the elk's range from the Rocky
Mountain west, take elk of all ages.
Where predation and hunting do not keep them low, elk numbers
usually increase until they are limited by lack of food. At high
population levels, elk can have a significant impact on their
range and on their food plants by grazing, browsing, and trampling
of vegetation. During severe winters or droughts, significant
numbers of elk may starve or become predisposed to disease. The
managers of many of the Canadian elk populations that are not in
parks aim to keep elk numbers well below the maximum dictacted by
food resources so that elk will be less likely to experience
die-offs.
Relationship to people
Elk are highly esteemed by hunters
and are one of North America's major big game species. In Canada
approximately 4000 elk are taken by licensed hunters each year.
The hunt generates local economic activity estimated at about $14
million per year. In addition, aboriginal hunters take an unknown
number. In parks where elk are not hunted, they gradually become
habituated to the presence of humans. They may eventually become
so tame that they go about their business undisturbed even when
people approach closely. Large numbers of habituated elk may be
seen in Banff and Jasper national parks in and around the
townsites, especially in early spring. Habituated elk are
important attractions in those parks and are an asset of
substantial aesthetic and commercial value. It must always be kept
in mind that animals habituated to humans may be dangerous if
approached too closely. Bulls, especially, should be given a wide
berth during the early autumn rutting season.
In mountain areas during winter, elk share valley bottoms with
major transportation corridors. This leads to many elk-vehicle
collisions, with disastrous results to the elk and to humans and
their automobiles. This costly hazard has been controlled in Banff
National Park by construction of a system of fences, cattleguard
gates, and underpasses along the Trans-Canada Highway.
The readiness with which elk can be habituated to people and the
value of products derived from them have recently aroused
considerable interest in domestication and ranching of the
animals. One of the most valuable elk products is their antlers.
Since ancient times, Oriental people have believed that medicinal
preparations from elk antlers that have been removed while still
in velvet are a general tonic and possibly an aphrodisiac. Thus
Oriental medicine consumes large quantities of elk antler at a
high price. Antlers are surgically removed when they have reached
maximum size but before they harden; then they are dried, sorted
by grade, and shipped to Asian markets.
In many areas elk and domestic cattle share the same ranges.
Because both eat the same foods and the presence of cattle brings
human activity, there is some conflict between the two species. In
mountain areas where elk concentrate in valleys that are also
important winter range for cattle there is competition for scarce
forage and disturbance of elk at a time when they are under stress
due to severe weather. Such situations call for close cooperation
between ranchers and wildlife managers to keep problems under
control.
The future welfare of elk in general depends on cooperation
between wildlife authorities and all land managers, including
forest industries, oil and mining companies, park managers, and
Indian bands, as well as ranchers.
In spite of these ongoing conflicts, Canadian elk populations are
stable and healthy. It might be possible to reintroduce the
animals to areas they formerly occupied, but, given the competing
demands for land by ranchers and others, and the space needed by
the wild predators of the elk, which are vital to a healthy
ecosystem, the current elk population is probably large enough.
With adequate attention to their management this splendid wild
species will remain a permanent asset to Canada.
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