Nugget 1: The Elk of Yellowstone Park

If you had gone to Yellowstone Park fifty years ago, you would surely have seen several black bears begging along the roads. Nowadays, the animal you are sure to see in the park is the elk. Many thousands of them graze inside the boundaries during the summer months. You're particularly likely to see elk along the Madison River and its tributaries, the Firehole and Gibbon rivers, and in the northern part of the park.

Bulls and cows both are dark brown and have a light-colored rump and tail. They are sometimes called by their Shawnee Indian name, wapiti, meaning ‘white rump.’

Mammoth Hot Springs is the only place in Yellowstone planted with grass. The elk, seen (at left) in 1996 in front of the Albright Visitor Center, help keep it trimmed.

These elk are not tame ones; they're definitely wild and you shouldn't approach closer than 25 yards (23 meters). And they are big—mature bulls may be five feet (1.5 meters) tall, nine feet (2.7 m) long, and weigh half a ton (450 kg).

If you've heard the myth about being able to tell the age of a bull elk by counting the points on his antlers, forget it. Dominant and mature bulls have six or seven points, but they are not necessarily six or seven years old.

On hot summer days, you may see Mammoth's elk resting among the buildings or lying on the dry terraces, as this one (below left) was doing at Opal Terrace in 1997. The white travertine (calcium carbonate) of the terrace reflects the heat away, and the elk find few bugs there to pester them. (Incidentally, elk would not have chosen this rest spot the previous year, when Opal Terrace was considerably more active!)

Elk find rich browsing along the Gardner River. Here (above right) is a group of cows and calves crossing just below Boiling River, a favorite bathing spot of locals, park employees, and visitors.

CREDITS: The black-and-white photo of the elk in front of the visitor center is by Leslie Kilduff. The two other photos on this page are by Mary VanBuskirk.

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 Learn about the many animals and plants in "Living Things, A Yellowstone Sampler," pages 319–43.

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