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Show Elk Mhalbiti Biyce Coimfay Among the large game animals which inhabit Bryce Canyon country is the handsome elk. Elk herds are located on the south slopes of Beaver Mountain in the northwest corner of the county in the Mt. Dutton area north of Utah Highway 12, in the Panguitch Lake area, and in the Boulder Mountain area. The herd on Ml. Dutton numbers over 500 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 12. There are between 400 and 500 animals on Boulder WK Tfwl- '' IJ, I Ml . 1 - I. t Handsome Elk These handsome elk are among the large game animals inhabiting Bryce Canyon country. Elk can often be seen from the dirt road that leads north to Tom Best Spring. Mountain and fewer ai Panguitch Lake and on the Paunsaugunt Plateau. Elk were reintroduced into Garfield County in the middle 1930's and herds have grown steadily in numbers since. Originally called "wapiti", by the Shawnee Indians, colonists nevertheless chose to call the magnificent animal "elk." In Europe, 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 Mountains, where the largest herds lived in Yellowstone River, and in Washington's Olympic Mountains. The bull elk stands about five-" feet high at the shoulder and may weigh from 700 to 1000 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 bom in the spring and it is rare for a cow to bear more than one. An elk calf is tawny-brown tawny-brown with many white spots that are lost at the first change of coat in August. |