Monarch of the West Wapiti

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Before the coming of Europeans, elk were the most widely distributed members of the deer family in North America, with an estimated 10 million wapiti roaming the continent — from Canada south as far as Durango and Hidalgo states in Mexico, west coast practically to east. In fact, wapiti once ranged over most of the lower 48 states. By 1922, though, elk had been so ravaged by unregulated hunting and their habitat so diminished by a westering human population (with the attendant cattle and sheep) that the number of wapiti in North America had sunk to a low of some 90,000 animals.

Yellowstone National Park proved to be the elk's saving space in the lower 48 (as it was for the bison). There, on 3,458 square miles of prime big-game habitat, safe from market hunters, real estate developers, and other human predators, elk continued to thrive. Wapiti from the burgeoning Yellowstone herd have since been sown round the continent until — according to the latest estimates of the Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation — North America now supports some 700,000 elk, with 650,000 of that total residing in the lower 48 states. This is the greatest number in this century (and occasionally too many for some ranges with limited carrying capacities, such as the Jackson Hole, Wyoming, wintering grounds of the southern Yellowstone herd.)

Today there are thriving wapiti populations in five Canadian provinces, along the Pacific coast from northern California up through British Columbia, on Afognak and Raspberry islands in Alaska, in the seven Rocky Mountain states, and in the Dakotas — as well as smaller herds on wildlife preserves in Nebraska, Oklahoma, Texas, Arkansas, Minnesota, Michigan, the Virginias, Pennsylvania, Florida, and Coahuila state, Mexico.

The primary North American elk species, Cervus elaphus, comprises four living subspecies, including the Rocky Mountain, Manitoban, Roosevelt, and Tule races. (Unfortunately, two other subspecies — Merriam and Eastern — are recently extinct.)

The Rocky Mountain elk ( C. e. nelsoni ) is native to the area from which it takes its name and is the most widespread of the four groups. A mature Rocky Mountain bull such as Old Rube might go 95 inches nose to rump, stand to around 55 inches at the shoulders, and weigh 700 to 800 pounds or more on the hoof. (While a few Rocky Mountain bulls in the half-ton class may still exist, they're about as scarce as fur on a fish.) Mature Rocky Mountain cows tickle the scales at around 500 to 600 pounds.

Manitoban elk, native to Canada's Manitoba and Saskatchewan provinces, carry somewhat smaller antlers, weigh a bit more, and are slightly darker in color than their Rocky Mountain cousins. There are fewer than 10,000 of this race in existence.

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