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Show Majestic Elk Among Game Animals in Garfield year's elk season starts on the first Wednesday of October. Success in Garfield County on elk hunts has run at about 80 percent in recent years. The herds'are beginning to spread with a few seen in the Tropic Reservoir area and in the Panguitch Lake area. Originally called "wapiti", by the Shawnee Indians, colonists nevertheless chose to call , the magnificent animal "elk." In Euorpe, elk are actually closer to equivalent of the moose, but the name has clung and they are commonly called elk today. A close relative of the red deer of Europe and Asia, the American elk was once found over most of the United States and Southern Canada. Hunters and disease, however, killed so many of them that they survived only in the region west of the Rocky Mountaains, where the largest herds lived in Yellowstone National Park, on Montana's Sun River, and in Washington's Olympic Mountains. The bull elk stands about five feet high at the shoulder and may weigh from 700 to 1,000 pounds with rounded antlers that can spread as much as five feet. The cow elk is ' smaller than the male and has no antlers. Elk feed primarily on grasses but also eat twigs and needles of trees. Wolves and cougars are their natural enemy. Elk calves are born in the spring and it is rare for a cow to bear more than one. An elk calf is tawny-brown with many white spots that are lost at the first change of coat in August. Among the large game animals which inhabit Garfield County is the handsome elk. Elk herds are located in areas A and B on the south slopes of Beaver Mountain the northwest corner of the county in the Mt. Dutton area north of Utah Highway 12, and in the Panguitch Lake area in the Boulder Mountain area. The herd on Mt. Dutton numbers over 400 animals and elk can often be seen from the dirt road that leads north to Tom Best Spring starting at the top of Red Canyon on Utah Highway High-way 12. There are between 200 and 300 animals on Boulder Mountain and fewer at Panguitch Lake. Elk was reintroduced into Garfield Gar-field County in the middle 1930's and herds have grown steadily in numbers since. Each year the state of Utah allows a few animals to be hunted on a restricted hunt. The first hunt in Garfield County took place in the Panguitch Lake area. This Where Rucks Go, (Continued from Page 2) management and information to the public through the news media, . publications and environmental and hunter education programs. Wildlife dollars are received form a variety of sources. Licenses and permits provide 71 percent of the income of the Division of Wildlife Resources. License fees are set by the Legislature and permit fees by the Wildlife Board or (Continued on Page ) mjJ7 f4;wB. ..-v-.-..'-'--r: . 4 's V.V...'---.- vv ' . Fishing in Hatch Where Bucks Go . . . (Continued from Page 4) the Board of Big Game Control. All license and permit revenue is deposited into the Restricted Wildlife Resources Account. None of this money may be used for non-wildlife non-wildlife purposes. Federal aid provides 17 percent of Division funds. Federal law specifies that this money may not be used outside of the Division for non-wildlife non-wildlife purposes. It is credited to Wildlife Resources in the general fund and is used only for wildlife programs. Federal aid comes from an excise tax paid by sportsmen who (Continued on Page 8) |
