The dark-colored manes on those horse-sized animals in the north Animas Valley give them away as elk, which are following a millennia-old migration pattern.
Their sojourn in the valley will be relatively brief, said Joe Lewandowski, a spokesman for Colorado Parks and Wildlife, in Durango.
“They’re down from the high country to escape snow and cold – although, this has been a mild winter,” Lewandowski said. “They find water and forage in the valley.”
This year, the elk have been spared the effort of digging their way through even a thin layer of snow to find forage.
What appears to be an early spring also has brought out the first crocus as well as abundant grass, and gaggles of geese have taken over wetland pools of water.
Elk herds may make long migrations, said Brad Weinmeister, a Colorado Parks and Wildlife biologist. Herds have been tracked from south of U.S. Highway 160 north to the head of the Pine River then over the Continental Divide into the San Luis Valley.
When herds return to the high country, they tend to browse just below the snow line, he said. They will be at higher elevations in time for the rut, which peaks at the end of September and first days of October, he said.
Alpha bulls may have harems of as many as 25 cows, Weinmeister said. Lesser bulls may end up with a couple of partners, he said.
The young will be born this summer. Elk cows generally have only one offspring per pregnancy, but cows up to 20 years old have calved, he said.
The age-old presence of elk in Western Colorado is substantiated by sandstone cliff pictographs dating to the Basketmaker III Era – 500 to 750 A.D.
Herd numbers fell to dangerously low levels in the late 19th century with the arrival of miners and other settlers to the Rocky Mountains who needed a plentiful and convenient food source.
Trophy hunters also contributed to the decimation of elk herds.
The U.S. Forest Service records indicate an elk population of 500 to 1,000 of the species in the entire state of Colorado in 1910.
“There could have been local resident herds, but elk were pretty much wiped out,” Weinmeister said. “They’re a hardy and adaptable animal that can survive in different places and on different foods.”
A series of refuges were created from 1910 to 1920, and elk from Yellowstone and Jackson Hole were brought to repopulate the Colorado colonies. As a supportive measure, the Legislature imposed a closed season on elk from 1913 to 1929.
Today, an estimated 240,000 elk live in Colorado.
Elk in the state and around the West have benefited from the work of the 30-year-old Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation, headquartered in Missoula, Montana.
“Our main effort is habitat enhancement, which benefits all wildlife,” Tom Toman, a biologist with the foundation for 19 years, said by telephone. “We fund projects of the Bureau of Land Management, the U.S. Forest Service and Colorado Parks and Wildlife.”
A Colorado Parks and Wildlife research project underway is looking at possible disruption of habitat in the Southwest Colorado by oil and gas production, he said.
The foundation raises money through banquets, raffles and silent auctions, Toman said. Money raised in Colorado remains for use there, he said.
“The foundation has $280,000 to spend in the state this year,” Toman said. “We count a lot on volunteers because we want our money to be in the field and not in salaries, buildings or banks.”
Elk in Colorado belong to the Rocky Mountain subspecies. Other subspecies are the Roosevelt (coastal Pacific Northwest), Tule (central California) and Manitoban (northern Great Plains). The Merriam and Eastern subspecies are extinct.
Before the arrival of Europeans, an estimated 10 million elk roamed all of what is the United States and Canada, the Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation says.
In Southwest Colorado, elk are found throughout the Weminuche Wilderness and in the Hermosa Creek drainage, Lewandowski said. Their diet includes grass, shrubs and tree bark.
“We still have room here for wildlife,” he said. “We’re grateful to the ranchers who tolerate them.”
daler@durangoherald.com
