Elk, a Hunted Elegance

For years we have hunted the Cervus Elaphus (the technical name for elk). For years hunters have been proud of there rightful place in the field of conservation of wildlife. And fore years many people in the general public have discriminated their actions in killing the animals.

Humans are hunters, we are gatherers, and we are all consumers. Weather we obtain our food from the vegetable arena of the supermarket or slaughter deer, elk, cow, pheasant and many other animals for our own supplementary means, we are all acting as consumers of the earth. From the blast of the gun they fall to the ground, from the knife of the hand are they quartered, from the meat factories are they prepared, and from the grocery market are they purchased for consumption to all of us.

Hunters are not at all ashamed of their works because it is a way of life. When questioned about their works, the most common response (statistically proven) is something along the lines of "...I enjoy the challenge..." Why do we support hunting you might ask?

The simple fact is that if animals are left alone, they will multiply and begin to quickly consume their resources until eventually they are depleted, which in turn leads to a downfall in the population, which could near the point of extinction. So if the elk are left alone they will kill themselves, that is why we must intervene! It is the soul duty of the hunters to control the population to a point which limits the population growth to a point in which the earth has sufficient resources to maintain.

As we have are hunters doing the legal job of density control, we have those who give hunters a bad name, the poachers. There are a certain number of tags distributed by Game officials. The number of tags corresponds to the number of wildlife we need to have removed from the herds to maintain the population control. Hunters buy the tags, poachers do not (for the most part). Poachers are also known to be the ones to kill the game and leave the remains to rot in the kill zone, while the animal should be quartered and used for meat.

Elk calves weigh on average approximately 35 pounds, and by the way, elk are members of the deer family. Elk are popularly noted to be deer with 'antlers'. Elk do have antlers that can weigh up to 40 pounds, which is shed once a year. The hair of the elk is shed twice a year... Upon the North American continent, before the Europeans arrived, there stood nearly 10 million deer in the wild. By 1907 that number dropped down to 100,000 or even lower than that. Now due to our game control, we have raised the population to about 1 million in the wild. Elk weigh anywhere from 500 pounds to 900 pounds. But generally what is retrieved by hunters are 600 or 700 pound carcasses. Elk have four chambered stomachs and chew their cud. The Rocky Mountain Elk are the largest of the four subspecies of elk (Roosevelt's elk, Manitoban elk, Rocky Mountain elk, and Tule elk). And humans are not Elk's only predators, as they are also hunted by mountain lions, grizzlies black bears, wolves, and a few others. To this current day Elk are roaming in about 24 different states and 5 Canadian provinces.

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