Fig. 130. Elk or wapiti (Cervus canadensis nelsoni), Banff, Alberta, October, 1939. (G. A. Thomas photo.)
The habits of the elk are best known from the herds in the Olympic Mountains and on the Rattlesnake Game Refuge in the eastern Cascade Mountains. Here the animals are numerous and relatively tame. Their habits seem to differ somewhat in the forests of the lowlands from those of the animals in the higher Olympics where the topography and climate are very different.
The elk is a social animal, gathering in herds over most of the year. The old males leave the herds in the spring but seem to stay in small bands while their antlers are growing. In the Olympic Mountains, herds of 100 or more animals have been seen. In the lowlands there are ordinarily from five to ten in a herd.
Fig. 131. Group of elk or wapiti (Cervus canadensis nelsoni), Banff, Alberta, October 10, 1939. (G. A. Thomas photo.)
The elk is a browsing animal, feeding on twigs and leaves of deciduous trees, shrubs and evergreens. In spring and summer it eats grasses and succulent annuals, but in winter twigs and needles of evergreens, perennial ferns, dry grass and even moss is utilized. To a certain extent the elk are migratory, ascending to the open meadows of the Hudsonian Life-zone in the early summer and returning to the dense forests of the Transition and lower Canadian Life-zones with the winter snows. The lowland elk make no such migrations, merely leaving the riverbottom jungles when the leaves are off the deciduous plants growing there, and live in the coniferous timber.
In the forests the elk is capable of swift and almost silent movement. It is an eerie experience to trail a herd of elk through a dense forest in a winter rain, knowing that a number of the large animals are within a few feet, moving swiftly but silently away. When a herd is feeding and does not suspect the presence of an observer, the animals rustle branches, break twigs, snort and wheeze as they breathe.