Elk Habits

Elk Habits

David Sparks Ph.D.
David Sparks Ph.D.
A fascinating conversation with wildlife biologist Ted Cook about elk habitat and habits.

So, Ted, referring to my little mountain paradise, you mentioned about a game trail, every single night as we sat in the living room. We would see 60 to 80 elk come down off the mountain to my property because forest service kept a stock tank filled with water. Is it your experience that elk are creatures of extreme habits?

Oh, yeah. Especially when it comes to water. Right now, I'm living in Garden Valley, Idaho, an hour north of Boise. I'm fortunate to have the South Fork of the Payette River as my backyard. And there's a great big meadow across the river. And even in that part of Idaho, where water is not at all a limiting factor like it might have been in Arizona where you were. Yeah, most nights there's a bunch of cows with new calves. They're just born 2 1/2 months ago filtering out to that meadow every night. And in fact, we even hear them start calling at about seven o'clock from across the river. We'll hear cow calls and then, sure enough, he get the binoculars out. Twenty minutes later, there's a dozen elk out on the matter that you can see there. Quite a few more now. So, very much so. Creatures of habit, especially in the summertime. Also in winter range spring and fall like times, they moved from summer to winter range and fall is the rut. And so habits become much less well-defined. But in general, yeah, they're just making life easy on themselves. And if there's a great big meadow full of food and water, they'll just go out there every night until they don't.

Why change what ain't broke? Right, exactly. If it ain't broke, don't fix it.

Exactly. And that's why successful hunters spot scout and scope before the hunt.

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