Tag Archives: Bull elk

Somethin Ain’t Right

Posted on by
Problem1733Bull Elk Rocky Mountain National Park    click to enlarge

Rumors had been drifting down the mountainsides here in Colorado that there was something amiss in the elk community up at Rocky Mountain National Park. Many of the bull elk could be seen gathered together talking amongst themselves, glancing with a certain amount of defiance and suspicion at the people passing by in their cars. There was disquieting talk that something was different this spring and it felt as if there was unwelcome and threatening change in the air.

Finally the suspense broke and a declaration was made. The bulls put out a pronouncement. After lots of arguing, debating and head butting it was decided that this spring the bulls were not going to drop their antlers as they have done for countless springs before. Above is a three-day old image of one of the central participants in this new movement defiantly and nonchalantly still sprouting his year old antlers, defying age-old traditions as if nothing out of the ordinary was happening. Now some of you may not realize what an extraordinary, astonishing thing this is. This is equivalent to Congress suddenly announcing that they were not going to work together, or take a pay cut, or get things done that were actually beneficial to the people they’re supposed to be serving, or stop being stupid, or lower taxes, or care for the sick, well you know, an impossible expectation.

Well as you have come to realize, this is the kind of event that The Institute exists for. We immediately began centralizing our resources, pulling our stringers in from the far-flung corners of the globe, scrambling our mobilization team. We began deciding who was going to do what, cleaned and tuned up our gear, made certain our lines of communication were open and sprang into action. Our crack researchers began researching when was the last time elk had refused to drop their antlers, if ever. Our tame photographer was sent to take pictures of any elk that still had their antlers on and there were many, our archivists began searching through old copies of Outdoor Life, Sports Afield, Cosmopolitan, Boy’s Life the official magazine of the Boy Scouts of America, for any mention or reference to previous occurrences of this phenomenon.

It is an awesome sight to see an organization like The Institute bringing its full weight to bear on a situation like this. We immediately began hearing from the other major news gathering organizations, When did we first learn about this? Were the elk serious? Had there been any commercial repercussions from this remarkable situation? Would this affect the local economy? Is this a bunch of bull? Did this mean there was a new policy regarding the elks right to retain their own antlers or was this simply a splinter group seeking media attention? Had there been any official comment by the Fish and Game department as to what steps might be taken if the elk continued to refuse to shed their antlers? Was there going to be a show of force? Was it true there had been a run on hacksaw blades at the local Ace hardware store? Who were these new elk and who was their leader? Are there any connections to elk in other parts of the world, namely the middle east? Will you share your information with the world?

There it was. The question that made all of our efforts and pain and commitment worthwhile. Will you share your information with the world?  Of course we will world. It is our Prime Directive. It is why we constantly lobby our representatives in our lackluster congress for more funding so that we can continue to exist and bring important stories like this to you, our fellow citizens. When this question was related to our staff, there was a moment of solemn silence as the importance of that question began to sink in until suddenly a rousing cheer went up, coffee cups and copy machines, desks and our expensive new $28,000 dollar printer were thrown into the air in celebration and this outpouring of emotion lasted until we brought in the dogs to regain order. Then everyone quickly rejoined the frenzy of activity and work that is the heart and soul of our organization, The Institute. In the past we have had to take difficult measures with our staff to keep them focused on the task at hand. Not this time, we didn’t have to cancel the Sponge Cake Bonanza in the cafeteria that everyone looks forward to, we didn’t have to spike their coffee with Mad Dog 20-20 to keep them energized. This was a genuine heartfelt response and desire to get this information and get it to you, our loyal readers. This unbridled spirit of cooperation brought a tear to the eye of many a harden staffer I can tell you.

Well it is day 4 and counting since this dramatic situation developed. We are still hard at it. As you might expect we have our experts up in the park to constantly monitor the situation and if there is any breaking news we will be there to observe, record, and distribute the newest developments. Stay tuned world, important things are happening.

The Ugly Elkling

Posted on by

The UglyElkling5815click to enlarge

Since the majority of my readers are barely out of their teenage years, or wish they were, it won’t be a stretch to remember what it was like being a teenager. I know I can remember every agonizing moment. It’s that time where absolutely nothing is right, you feel like everybody’s looking at you, they are by the way, your coat feels funny, you walk stupid, and your antlers, your poor antlers. You can’t even grow a pair of decent antlers.

The young cows are now looking at the herd bull with his magnificent antlers with an appraising eye and totally ignoring you except when they’re humiliating you with agonizing comments of “Hey Dweeb, nice antlers” or “Great set of antlers you got there Skippy, didn’t they have them in your size?” It is the worst time of your life.

But and this is a big but, things change. I know right now that doesn’t seem possible, but they do. Next year you’ll have filled out a little more, the big bulls will let you hangout around the edge of the herd so you can learn how to walk and act cool, your voice will change and it won’t be long and your squeaky call will morph into a full-throated bellow, things will be looking up.

And your antlers, whoa dude are you going to have a set of antlers. They’re going to rise up out of your forehead, spread four feet across and three feet high. They’ll fork into needle sharp spears and be 5 or 6 points a side by your fifth year and weigh twenty pounds. Big heavy beams, gorgeous polished tines, you may be even be a Royal. Anything’s possible. Then it’ll be your turn to say “I don’t know babe, maybe later”. So hang in there, better days are coming. But for right now, honestly, go hang out in the bushes til those things fall off.

Love for Sale

Posted on by

Love Song9027click to enlarge

The Rut. Although it sounds like the opening to a Monty Python skit it is deadly serious for this bull elk. For the last year he has done nothing but make himself ready for this annual adventure. He has watched his diet, worked out, taken much care with his personal appearance and now he is ready for the main event.

This isn’t just singles dating for this guy, this is the real deal. He is determined to collect as many mates as he can as quickly as he can and he won’t be deterred by anything or anyone. This is Polyamory in its truest form. He has just this one shot, if you will pardon the expression, to pass along his genes to as many of his spouses as possible. It is a lot of work but he is highly trained and more than up to the contest.

He has several major problems to overcome. One is collecting as many females as he can, he has to set the mood, run them down, hustle them back to his harem, impregnate them and go after another one.

Another problem is keeping them. During the rut this guy is not the only male working here. There is always somebody lurking in the bushes trying to take his women away from him by hook or by crook. This naturally causes hard feelings and things are said that cannot be taken back and before you know it the Battle Royale is on. My money is on this guy, he didn’t grow those enormous antlers for show.

The last but not least problem he has is keeping his rich tenor voice in shape. It has to have that Barry White sound for bass and Harry Connick Jr for the mid-point with a touch of Aaron Neville at the end to make him irresistible to the ladies and really cheese off the other males. There is nothing more pathetic than having a squeaky, lame song, I mean nobody takes you seriously.

The rut lasts a couple of months or more and then the parties over. He heads back up into the mountains, sheds his antlers, kicks back and rests for a while, then starts all over again. His main concerns at this point are not letting anyone he knows see him without his antlers, not getting eaten by wolves, and making certain he takes care of his voice. Other than that everything’s a slice.

Life’s Surprises

Posted on by

The RutBegins-7click to enlarge

Shocked! That’s the word I was looking for. Every once in a while you run up against something that just smacks you right in the face. No warning, no by-your-leave just “Hey” and you catch one right in the old choppers. That’s what happened to me yesterday.

For a very long time I’ve been photographing the ‘Rut’ that happens every fall here in the mountains. That’s where the bulls, like the one you see above, get together and wage battle for the mating rights to replenish the herd and pass along their genes in the process. Every year they do this, it’s one of principal reasons they grow those huge antlers, I mean otherwise, why bother. And every year I’m there to photograph the event. Until this year that is.

This year commitments beyond my control have prevented me from being in my favorite spot, camera in hand, documenting the activities as I have for what seems like eons. I’ve known deep down in my soul that if ever I was unable to attend the rituals, they would simply postpone them until I could make it. But they didn’t! They went right the hell along and started them anyway. Holy Freaking Cow! This feels like such a betrayal. I am devastated and as you might imagine, upset. I’ve only been able to eat a few thousand calories per meal but luckily I have been able to keep those down. You can not begin to imagine the pain of knowing that there they are, those heartless uncaring bastard bull elk, going about their business as if it didn’t matter that I wasn’t there. What about all the times I was there and photographed them in all their glory then published the pictures bringing them great fame and riches they could never have obtained on their own, the miserable wretches. They don’t care, the “what have you done for me lately” attitude they’ve developed is just sickening.

Well, there it is then. It is what it is. I’m going up and make eleven pounds of spaghetti for breakfast and they won’t get a single bite the rat-bastards. They’ll be out there getting their cans kicked back and forth across the meadow and I’ll be here in my warm house eating spaghetti and laughing. So much for them, see if I vote for gun control.

Yo Da Lady, The Lady Who

Posted on by

YoDaLady5277click to enlarge

Fall and music is in the air. Up in Rocky Mountain National Park the bull elk’s favorite season is here, the trees are starting to turn into the spectacular golden hues of autumn, their antlers are polished until they nearly glow in the dark, and they’re ready for their favorite musical pastime, yodeling. Yes, you heard right, Yodeling. Many people don’t know, including the folks that study these magnificent creatures, that the majority of the elk found in the central Rocky Mountain region above 10,200′ are originally from Switzerland, the home of the yodel.

During the period of 1450 thru 1575  A.D. there was a massive migration of Rocky Mountain Elk or “Wapiti” as they’re known in the highlands of Switzerland, from the Langnauerli and Schwyzerörgeli regions. And of course those elk who came from the Schwyzerörgeli region brought along their favorite instrument, the Schwyzerörgeli Diatonic Accordion to accompany their yodeling. I mean, how could they not. It’s been their belief that you can’t yodel to anything else and some of the purists in the herd simply won’t.

They found the area in Northern Colorado, especially the high meadows of Rocky Mountain National Park, to be most like their homeland and settled there in great numbers. It wasn’t long before you heard the sounds of yodeling and of course the snappy foot-tapping rhythms of the accordion echoing off the mountainsides, filling the meadows and stream bottoms with the festive sounds of their native country like this http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BjrlemFSVFk

Although yodeling was a way of communicating between the bulls during the off-season when one bull would be on one side of the mountain and another would be on the opposite side and they wanted to get together somewhere in the middle to have coffee and those delightful little pastries, Bräzeli, and perhaps listen to some yodeling while they dined, yodeling is now mainly done in the fall months of September and October and perhaps early November. In fact instead of being a method of displaying their musical emotions throughout the year, it has turned into a battle cry for many of the more aggressive bulls. Unfortunately it is becoming less and less popular with the young bulls as an art form who now prefer to listen to “Hootie and the Blowfish” or “Luther Vandross”, or even “Little Richard” rather than the music of their fore-fathers. It has gotten to the point where the older bulls have resorted to bringing in tutors from the motherland to instruct the younger set on the correct way to yodel. Here’s an example http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XJHn542lPok

The good news is the traditional sounds of yodeling are beginning to be heard again high in the back country of the Rockies. If you are fortunate enough to be nearby when the music starts be sure to listen for the incredible sounds of Switzerland in the mountains. Its yodeling time again in the big herds, don’t miss it.

Little Rodney

Posted on by

LittleRodney5239click to enlarge

One of the things we are constantly on the look out for are little known facts about the wildlife we encounter every day. Things that the every day, run of the mill person doesn’t see, or if they do see it they don’t understand it and then we get the cards and letters asking “WTF dude, How come it does that?”

As part of the public service we are obligated to provide here at the Institute, because we foolishly accepted money from the government in the form of a grant to do just that, is answer these kind of asinine questions as accurately as possible. We struggle with providing the information to our ungrateful but demanding public, I mean, curious but inquisitive letter writers.

We recently received the following letter from little Rodney asking one of the dumbest , I mean, most interesting WTF questions we have received here at the mailroom in some time. He asked and we’ll  publish his letter in its entirety so you have some idea of what we have to deal with here.

Dear Mr. Director, My name is little Rodney and I’m 34½ years old but my mom says I’m big for my age. I have a 19″ TV in my room in the basement next to all my Star Wars stuff and I watch a lot of TV. Recently on a wildlife movie I saw an elk standing in the water with just his antlers in the sun. WTF? Yours curiously, Little Rodney

Well little Rodney that’s a pretty big question from a young fellow like you but we can answer it for you. You see, every year in the fall when a bull elk gets his new antlers and the velvet covering them comes off, they are stark, bone white and quite soft, unless you see them right after the velvet comes off, then they can be pinkish or reddish because of all the really gory blood that’s under the velvet. But it goes away quick and doesn’t hurt the bull elk at all. However, and this is a big however, the antlers are not finished yet, they have to be annealed. Annealed, which is a hard word that just means hardened and toughened up and made less brittle. This has to happen, the hardening I mean, because soon these great big 900 pound lummoxes are going to be slamming their heads together at close to 45 miles per hour and they have to make sure they don’t break their new antlers off. They do this because they want to get girls. If you not sure why they would want to get girls, have a long talk with your mom, or maybe the guys down at the garage where you get air put in your bike tires. Just know that the bulls want to get girls really bad, so they want extra strong, really, really hard antlers.

How they get those really strong antlers has been a secret for a long time and we have just figured out how they do it. That’s what we do at the Institute, figure out hard stuff. It is so simple that it has been overlooked by all these so-called experts who get paid big bucks, by the way, to figure out stuff like this. They should be ashamed of themselves and have their grants revoked and that money  given to us because we figured it out, right Rodney? Ask your mom to write a letter to the government telling them to give us that money instead, and if she has any extra or you can find any extra money around the house, send it to us quick so we can do more good work like this. OK? But we were talking about hard elk antlers, and how they get that way. Alright then, here it is, They stick their antlers, just the antlers, nothing else, out into the sun and even though it burns like crazy they keep them there until they can’t stand it any more. They do this over and over until they have the toughest antlers you can get. Really tough ones, slamming them into trees, tough. Tearing up shrubbery and throwing it in the air, tough. They don’t even care where it lands because they’re tough and because who’s going to mess with a bull elk that has antlers that tough anyway. I know, right, nobody. When they’re done with sticking those antlers out in the sun they’re now, remember that hard word, right, annealed. Now they can fight with anybody they like and get girls. Cool, huh?

There you go, now you know what a lot of other people don’t and that’s going to make you cool. You might even get girls Rodney. Remember, have your mom write that letter and send us some money ok. OK. Thanks for your letter and your very good question. Sincerely, Mr. Director at your favorite Institute

P.S. Look under the couch cushions, Rodney sometimes there’s money there, ok then, bye.

Fight Club

Posted on by

FightClub2515click to enlarge

The Rules of Fight Club

1st RULE: You DO NOT talk about FIGHT CLUB.

2nd RULE: You DO NOT talk about FIGHT CLUB.

3rd RULE: If someone says “stop” or goes limp, or snaps off an antler the fight is over.

4th RULE: Only two guys to a fight.

5th RULE: One fight at a time.

6th RULE: No shirts, no shoes.

7th RULE: Fights will go on as long as they have to.

8th RULE: If this is your first night at FIGHT CLUB, you HAVE to fight.