Picacho Peak Elk

[.270]

i have to agree with cousenut. elk are neat animals, but not when they start infesting nontraditional elk country. they've ruined the cedars for muleys, everywhere. they're all over in u28 and u31. won't be long and they will destroy kaibab and the strip too. now they're by picacho? the azgfd needs to do some serious and drastic things to remove elk from places where they aren't needed. they recently transplanted elk in kentucky. if they venture out of the counties where they want them to stay, they're fair game for everyone during deer season. don't even need a tag. keeps em where they want em that way. Az. should look at doing something similar. Lark.

[COUESAZ]

You hit the nail on the head with that Lark.

[TAM]

Lark, what you're saying makes good sense in a perfect world, but I think that G&F's concern is that if they say it's ok to shoot any elk in Yuma than people will go and shoot elk off the rim and say they shot it in Yuma. How many guys do you know that won't buy a mt. lion tag because after they shoot one they can just go into town and buy the tag. I'm not saying it's right but it happens more than we know.

[billrquimby]

That little bull elk near Picacho Peak must be terribly lonely, but it's not the only Arizona elk to wander a long way from its buddies.

 

About a dozen years ago, I think, a 6x6 bull was pulled out of a canal between Gila Bend and Buckeye.

 

In the 1950s and 1960s, there were many reports of elk sightings near Douglas. No one believed them until a train killed five or six cow elk in 1969 or 70.

 

There now also are elk on the Kaibab Plateau (they somehow crossed the Colorado River and Grand Canyon) as well as elk on Mount Graham. Neither group was stocked by Game and Fish. They simply showed up and stayed.

 

I agree with .270. As much as I like to see and hunt elk, they don't belong in the desert.

 

Bill Quimby

[azcouesandelk]

I thought that game and fish did move elk to the Kaibab Plateau to see how they would do there.

[Traveler]

The kaibab elk probably wandered in from Utah.

 

What is elk traditional range? Remember when Lewis and Clark came west they were all over the plains. The Rocky Mt elk are not native to AZ. The local species (name?) was killed off.

 

Javelina are new to AZ in the last 150 years or so, should we kick them out of AZ as well?

 

my .02

 

Dan

[azpackhorse]

I believe the species of elk that was native to Arizona was the Merriam's.

 

Javelina are steadily migrating further and further north also....next thing you know you will be able to purchase a Javelina tag in the Kaibab if you draw a deer tag

[KGAINES]

http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_...112/ai_n9007824

[COUESAZ]

If you ask me a pocket of the elk were never killed off. I fill they survived around the san carlos reservation area of the mountains.. I have taken some flack over this before and will probably take some now too. The size of elk taken from there and the size of antlers found proves that some good blood has survived from somplace.

[az4life]

I think Arizona guide may have a point. Afterall, every year or so someone discovers an animal alive that was thought to be extinct. We might be able to make a case that the Merriams elk have been hidden away in some dark canyon along the mogollon rim with the "mogollon Monster" (AZ version of Sasquatch)

 

In the case of Merriams elk, I dont think they affected the size favorably, but there could have been a few mixed with the current heard.

[More D]

Nice article! I makes me think of how LUCKY we all are to have such a variety of game to chase and records are available for the "common" man.

 

 

 

 

[billrquimby]

If you ask me a pocket of the elk were never killed off. I fill they survived around the san carlos reservation area of the mountains.. I have taken some flack over this before and will probably take some now too. The size of elk taken from there and the size of antlers found proves that some good blood has survived from somplace.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

Please excuse me for adding a bit of controversy to this thread.

 

There are informed and reasonable people who believe elk never existed in Arizona before the Winslow Elk's Club shipped them on railroad cars from Yellowstone and released them here. The Arizona Merriam elk type specimens were collected by someone whose professional ethics were considered questionable at a time when any non-Indian who ventured into the White Mountains would not have survived for long, they say.

 

A case can be made for their side.

 

If the Merriam's subspecies was here in ancient times there would be lots and lots of elk bones and tools made from elk antlers in the archaeological digs all over our present elk range, and there are not. There also would be lots of elk in the pictographs and petroglyphs across Arizona's backcountry, and there are not. Further, there would many Arizona Merriam's elk antlers from the nineteenth century still around, and there are only a handful (fewer than six or seven) ... allegedly ... and one of those supposedly was found nailed on a cabin on Mount Lemmon, of all places.

 

If elk did exist here, it is hard to believe that they were totally exterpated from our rugged and remote elk habitat by men with muzzleloading rifles. Pockets of living animals would have survived and contributed to the gene pool of today's Arizona elk, but only slightly. So many generations have passed it's doubtful that such a few drops of Merriam "blood" would result in bigger antlers. New Mexico and Chihuahua did have Merriam's elk, but they typically do not produce the huge antlers seen in Arizona today. Record antler size, in our case, could be due to nutrition.

 

As for the Kaibab's elk, Game and Fish didn't stock them there.

 

Bill Quimby

[az4life]

Bill

You have some interesting points... I never thougt about the indians and pictographs. However Antlers and bones found in the wild (not on a cabin wall) would likely not last even decades let alone a century. I think elk have done so well in AZ since their "re-introduction" it is likely they would have done well previous so they were probably here before they were "gone".

 

It could be that there were just not that many pioneers were here to see them.

 

Thanks for your perspective.

 

But what about the mogollon monster?

[25-06]

Does anyone of have a pic of a Merriam's Elk ? I would like to see how they differ

[COUESAZ]

The monster was killed by a hunter hired to track him. He was killed by a trap set with a gun in a cave set to fire when the trigger was sprung in the trap. Thw hunter sat in a tree for two days to make sure the bear did not live.

 

That is how I read the story I will try to find it again.

 

I do not know how true it is but I do remember reading it someplace. Lark or some body else with a bit more AZ history under there belt may know that.

 

I would like to here from amanda on her take of the AZ Elk herds. I do not know this as a fact but have been told that the reservation will not allow the AZ game and fish to test the Elk on there land. That seems a bit strange to me. I may be way out of line with that as well.