Animals

The Elk is the second largest member of the deer family with slender legs, a thick neck and is coloured brown or tan with darker underparts.

The antlers, only grown by males, are large with many tines, the main beam up to 150 cm long.
A large reddish-brown deer, of several species closely allied to the Moose. Enormous flattened antlers in the male.

The Elk occurs in high, open mountain pastures in summer and lower, wooded slopes or dense woods in the winter.

They are most abundant along the western side of the rockies but they also can be found near Golden, Bush River, Forest Lake, Lucerne area, Seebach Creek, Pear River area, and Tuchodi Lake area.
Elk are smaller than moose. They range in colour from dark brown in winter to tan in summer though their head, neck, belly and legs are darker than the back and sides. Elk have a long head with large ears.

Males have widely branching antlers, as long as 1.1-1.5 m from tip to tip, and are generally 10 percent larger than females and weigh twice as much.

This nocturnal creature is primarily a grazer feeding on woody vegetation and lichen. Once the velvet of his antlers has been discarded, the bull begins assembling his harem of up to 60 cows.
The gestation period is 255-275 days. The Elk’s main predator is the mountain lion and sometimes bears get the young.