Looking for information on the range of elk before the white man in america.
Here’s a site that has a former and present range map.
There is an on-line index for Current Research in the Pleistocene - Vol. 11 (1994) that indicates articles dealing with Elk and Wapiti on this site, but I do not know where you would find a physical copy of that journal from 1994.
Both Encyclopædia Britannica and this site on Cervus elaphus mention that the range was originally “much” or North America (as confirmed by the link KRC provided), although the linked site has references mentioning Tennessee and the Carolinas as being near the southern limits of its range.
Thanks for the information.
There are 4 elk bedded down just 1/4 mile from where I sit. 17 elk escaped from an elk farm just about 2 miles away. These have been roaming the countryside for 4 days. They seem to like the timbered area near the creek that runs behind our house.
The owner ,his hired man, and I tried to drive them out of the wooded area thinking they would go home. The elk had other ideas.
Elk are beautiful and in certain areas there are free-ranging herds that graze on public land where you can backpack and camp and actually hike in the middle of a herd, or even wake up in the middle of one. These particular animals are very used to people.
Some of my favorite elk areas include Bear Harbor in the Sinkyone Wilderness of Southern Humboldt and Northern Mendocino counties in Northern California. A bit farther north you can find more at Patrick’s Point State Park.
12 of the seventeen escapees have been returned home.
2 of the remaining 5 are now meat.
The other 3 are in the 15 or so acresof timber behind my house.
Twenty minutes ago 2 guys dressed in camo began to hunt “our 3”.
First choice is tranquilizer guns BUT if things don’t go well a “big” gun went along.
One of the elk that was killed was among these near my house but be got mixed up with the wrong crowd,5 deer, and ran out of the area. He was shot 6 miles north of here.
One of the hassles of living on and operating a small cattle outfit,I jest, 6 cows and 6 calves cannot be called an outfit, is that you have to fix fence even when somebody is doing something neat like hunting animals that, in the wild,in this area were declared extinct years ago ,even when its on your place. (hows that for one sentence).
Elk were put on this earth as wild animals. If they were domesticatable like cattle they would be raised like cattle by nearly everyone with a hankerin to be a “Farmer”.
So it was no surprise when an hour and 20 minutes after the elk hunt began I heard 4 gunshots.
Tranquilizer guns are really glorified pellet guns,air guns, so they have almost no report.
The guys said they just couldn’t get close enough with the tranquilizer guns. They only have a range of about 20 yards.
I’ve never eaten elk before.
I think you mean nearby Prairie Creek - I love Patrick’s Point ( I’ve spent entire days just sitting on the beach and sifting around for agates ), but I’m not sure the Roosevelt Elk wander over there with any great regularity.
Another easy place to see them is Point Reyes, just north of SF.
- Tamerlane
This thread simply cries out for Dogs in Elk and its further explanation.