It’s all about the boys, The North American elk range in color depending on the season and location. They vary from a light tan coat in the summer, to a dense, darker brown coat in the winter. Males will frequently have a thicker, darker ruff, or mane of hair growing on their neck. Their legs and necks are darker than their bodies. Both males and females sport the characteristic beige rump, but only males grow antlers. Males, also known as bulls range in size, 700 pounds(Rocky Mountain elk), 900 pounds(Roosevelt’s elk), 400 pounds(Tule elk). They average 5 feet at the shoulder and 8 feet from nose to tail. Bull’s antlers are grown every year and in a mature bull they can weigh up to 40 pounds. They start growing in the spring and are shed in the winter. Antlers grow at a rate of 1 inch per day and are made of bone. While the antlers are growing they are covered in a soft layer of vascularized skin commonly called velvet. This protects the bone as it grows so quickly. If the bone is damaged it can result in irregular growth of the antler and possibly even permanent damage. This blood flow also acts as air-conditioning, cooling the large male through the heat of the summer. As the bulls get larger every year so do their antlers. Larger antlers exhibit health and strength to the other bulls and impress the cows. They use their antlers to battle each other for breeding rights to the females. Each antler has tines that come from the main stem. The number of tines doesn’t correlate with age or maturity. Testosterone drives the formation and retention of antlers. In late fall after the breeding season the levels of pheromones released during estrus decline in the environment and the testosterone levels in the male drop as a consequence. When the testosterone drops this leads to the shedding of the antlers in early winter. Breeding takes place in the fall September through October/November and is known as the “rut”. Testosterone levels in males make them increasingly aggressive and drive them to attract and defend a harem of up to 20 females. Males dig up the ground with their antlers and hooves. They will urinate in these holes and role in it. The urine soaks into their hair and gives them a distinct smell which attracts cows. Elk are some of the nosiest ungulates. The characteristic call known as a bugle (a loud, brassy sound) is used to advertise their health and size to females and to warn other males to stay away. The bugle can be heard for miles. Bugling is often associated with an adaptation to open environments such as parklands, meadows, and savannas, where sound can travel great distances. Females are attracted to the males that bugle more often and have the loudest call. Competing males are attracted to another bulls bugle. Bugling is most common early and late in the day and is one of the most distinctive sounds in nature, comparative to the howling of a wolf. Bulls will meet up but when two evenly sized males meet up they battle. They first walk parallel to each other, back and forth comparing size and strength and then rush toward each other, locking antlers and shoving in shows of brute strength. The shoving with their antlers can last several rounds and longer amounts of time depending on how evenly they are matched. These battles frequently result in injury, but rarely result in death. The weaker bull usually backs off and the larger bull wins the harem of females. Only mature bulls have large harems and breeding success peaks at about eight years of age. Bulls between two to four years and over 11 years of age rarely have harems, and spend most of the rut on the periphery of larger harems. During this season, a bull elk will spend so much of its time guarding and protecting it’s harem that he will rarely eat and can loose as much as 20% of his body weight. The physical tole that this takes on him as he goes through rut will cause poor condition and he is less likely to have the strength to survive the rigors of the oncoming winter. Thanks again to Christina Seely for the photos
Posted on: Wed, 22 Oct 2014 17:00:30 +0000
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