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Show Timpanogos Elk Herd In Thriving Condition . 6 Provo Sportsmen View Herd of 28 Elk At Base of Mt. Timpanogos. By MARK ANDERSON Twenty-eight head of elk plowing plow-ing Bingle file through deep snow is a sight worth seeing. Earl Smoot and I were rewarded with such a spectacle Thursday after climbing the base of Timpanogos about one mile north of Olmstead. There were no mature bull elk in the band as it is the habit of the older males to separate themselves them-selves from the other elk at this season of the year. This would indicate in-dicate that the eight head of elk liberated by the Provo Kiwanis club at Wlldwood in March, 1925, have increased to approximately 40 head of living animals. The fish and game department is now feeding these elk on the first bench or terrace above and about one mile north of Olmstead. When snow falls deep as it is this winter elk are prone to find hay even though they must go through fences to get it. The department's de-partment's plan of placing hay back on the route that the elk take to the valley has prevented damage dam-age being done to private property this winter. It. appears that these elk have selected the open foothills foot-hills on the southwest base of Mount Timpanogos as a winter range.. In summer they roam over a wide territory. Since the placing of these Yellowstone elk on the Timpanogos game refuge they have been seen at various places Including American Fork canyon, at Deer Creek watershed, during the deer hunting season about two years ago it was reported that a large bull elk was killed by hunters near Wallsburg. Presumably the antlered bull was taken .or a large buck deer. While the elk or wapiti as they are called by the Indians were threatened with extinction about 25 years ago, there are now about one hundred thousand of these giant deer in the United States at the present time, mostly ranging within the national forests of the western United States. More than four thousand head of elk have been captured in and about Yellowstone Yellow-stone and placed on other ranges within the past 20 years. In nearly near-ly every Instance these plantings have thrived. The wapiti was once native to the entire northern half of what is now the United States. |