Merry Christmas and Happy Hanukkah everyone! For today’s weird and wonderful focus, I have decided to write about a large, hoofed creature: elk! I know, I know, I probably should have written about reindeer, but elk are really cool too, and North Carolina is home to a growing population of them! Also called Wapiti, which is a Shawnee word meaning “white deer”, elk once roamed throughout what is now the continental U.S., including the mountains of Western North Carolina and perhaps even the northwestern piedmont region of the state. During the 1800s elk became extirpated from most of the country east of the Rocky Mountains, mainly due to hunting pressure and habitat loss. Today, the largest populations are out in the western half of the U.S., but there are a few small populations in the eastern half, including the one in Great Smoky Mountain National Park.
There are a few subspecies of elk: the Rocky Mountain Elk is probably the most widely known, with its pale, cream-colored body (hence the name “Wapiti”) and dark head, neck, and legs. The Roosevelt Elk, named after Theodore Roosevelt, the 26th President of the United States, is found in the Pacific Northwest; the population in North Carolina is the Manitoban subspecies, Cervus elaphus manitobensis, as the Eastern Elk species, Cervus elaphus canadensis, is extinct. This subspecies has a dark head, neck, and dark legs, with the body ranging in color from deep copper to light tan or beige. While they are sometimes mistaken for white-tailed deer, they are much larger, measuring about five feet high at the shoulder for a full-grown bull elk and weighing around 700 pounds. It surpasses the black bear in size and is the largest mammal in our state.
Bugling bull elk, Cervus elaphus. Photograph courtesy of the North Carolina Wildlife Resources Commission.
A bull elk can have harems of up to 60 cows, making this species the most polygamous of all the deer species in North America. Bulls will sound a bugle call to warn competing males to stay away, and to assert their dominance over the cows in their harem. This call begins as a bellow, transitions to a whistle or a noise described as a scream, and ends with a series of grunts; the whistle or scream portion is what carries over long distances. Both bulls and cows will mark their territory by stripping the bark from seedlings, and during the breeding season, bulls will dig wallows. Wallows are depressions in the ground that they make with their hooves and antlers, into which they urinate and defecate to create a strong odor. Bulls will roll in the resulting, stinky mud, which is either a way to attract cows, a way to intimidate other bulls, or may serve both purposes. Either way, I feel confident in listing this species as one of the weird and wonderful animals that call our state home.
The elk herd at the North Carolina Zoo in Asheboro, NC. Photograph courtesy of the author.
There have been a handful of attempts to reintroduce elk into North Carolina: the first attempts, during the first half of the 20th century, failed. However, the project was initiated again in 2001 by the National Park Service, with 52 individuals of the Manitoban subspecies introduced over a period of two years into the Cataloochee Valley region of the Great Smoky Mountain National Park. Some of the elk wandered outside of the park’s boundaries and established populations in neighboring counties. The NPS is responsible for the elk within the park, and the North Carolina Wildlife Resources Commission manages all of the populations outside of the park’s boundaries. Today it is estimated that around 200 elk are living within the state on national, state, local, and privately held land. So, the next time you take a road trip through Great Smoky Mountain National Park, consider driving along the road through Cataloochee Valley. From your vehicle you may be fortunate enough to see some members of this weird and wonderful species amongst the trees or in the fields. During late September through early October, you may even be able to hear the famous elk bugle call. Alternatively, consider stopping by the North Carolina Zoo: amongst their animal residents, which are over one thousand creatures and counting, is an elk herd. In whatever form you choose to view this impressive species, take some time to appreciate its resilience, beauty, and yes, its dash of weirdness.