As the bull matures year over year, the size and overall mass of his rack increases. He will sport this new rack until mid- to late-winter when hormonal changes cause the antlers to fall off. Antlers can grow over an inch per day and are the fastest growing animal tissue known to exist! In late summer, a bull rubs his head against objects to shed the velvet, leaving behind the hardened rack. For most of summer, the antlers are covered with a velvety skin flush with blood vessels that provide nutrients to the rapidly growing solid bone underneath. Informally, the border between the two subspecies in Oregon is considered to be US-97 but the two intermingle in the east Cascades and cross-breeding almost certainly occurs.īeginning every spring, bulls (male elk) that are at least a year old begin growing a new set of antlers (or rack). Rocky Mountain elk are smaller in body, but have the largest antlers of all elk, weighing up to 40 pounds! They are found in most of eastern Oregon. Roosevelt elk have the larger body of the two (males are 700-1,100 pounds) and are found in most of western Oregon. Of the twenty-two recognized subspecies worldwide, four are found in North America and two of these inhabit Oregon-Roosevelt elk and Rocky Mountain elk. Native American artifacts from British Columbia all the way to Maine depict our reverence for the majestic wapiti (another term for elk from the Shawnee for “white rump”). Retrieved 22 August 2021.Elk ( Cervus elaphus) have captivated the human spirit for as long as we’ve inhabited North America. "Measurements and Weight Relationships in Manitoba Elk" (PDF). "Influence of landscape and social interactions on transmission of disease in a social cervid". Archived from the original on 16 January 2021. "First elk seen in South Carolina since the 1700s". North Carolina Wildlife Resources Commission.
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