Elk in Rut

Rutting season has officially begun. In the first half of the video you will see the bull is anxious to meet the cow. The second half of the video you see the bull makes it over the fence to greet her. Elk In the Little Lake Valley sub-herd have been observed to have one female group with 18-20 cows with one dominant bull, and several smaller groups of cows managed by lesser, satellite bulls. The dominant bull will have to fight off and try to keep his cows away from the satellite bulls throughout the rutting season. There are also a few rag horn/spike antler bulls, that are young, less mature bulls under 4 or 5 years old. It has been observed that these younger bulls practice sparring with one another during the rut season, and would require a lone cow to have any success mating. In the future we hope to gather video footage of Bull Elk sparring or challenging each other.