Possible Elk Pictographs

[billrquimby]

This is my fourth attempt to show the pendant. Hope it finally works.

 

Bill Quimby

[25-06]

This is my fourth attempt to show the pendant. Hope it finally works.Bill Quimby

looks like a elk to me. Thanks Bill.

[azslim]

more often than not the wieners are pointing north

 

down in West Clear Creek between Maxwell & Tramway trails is a sandstone cliff covered with rock art, one is definitely a grizzly

 

lots of rock art along the Agua Fria around the Monument (Badger Springs), especially across the river

[ready2hunt]

"unless proven different - I go with elk ! nice find" Show me an elk with forks on every tine and I'll agree with you. Bill Quimby

 

 

why can't it be a non-typical elk AZ elk? If a wolf can wander 3 states over, or a mountain lion show up in a state it has been in decades why not an elk in an old drawing?

 

Not my pic by the way.......just googled non-typical az elk.

[ready2hunt]

This is my fourth attempt to show the pendant. Hope it finally works. Bill Quimby

 

 

How many elk have you seen or have EVER been documented with toes like a frog? Obviously I agree though....the pendant is an elk.

[PelaPapas]

 

This is my fourth attempt to show the pendant. Hope it finally works.Bill Quimby

looks like a elk to me. Thanks Bill.

 

Could be a Loch ness monster with a tree branch in its mouth?

[ready2hunt]

 

 

This is my fourth attempt to show the pendant. Hope it finally works.Bill Quimby

looks like a elk to me. Thanks Bill.

 

Could be a Loch ness monster with a tree branch in its mouth?

 

I seriously almost typed the same thing. It does doesn't it haha. Maybe that proves nessy exists after all

[trphyhntr]

show me a man that looks like this

 

[AZbowhntr]

Like 270 said they were not very good at art. Apparently they failed that class in school. I think I could have done better blindfolded. I think it is cool to see though.

[wildwoody]

Did some family history, and asked a few questions to the very wise elders. There must have been quit a few Merriam's elk in az back in the days because Babe Haught guided Zane Grey to many Merriam's kills. People are secret and discreet with there kills today with technology, so if there were a dozen or two reported and they were bulls, I would say that was a very small number of what was here back in 1700, 1800, early 1900's. Just sayin that's !he what elders say.

[billrquimby]

"Wildwooly:

 

Zane Grey wrote in his "Tales of Lonely Trails" about seeing elk while hunting the Tonto Basin and Mormon Lake country with three members of the Haught family.

 

However, although he wrote quite a lot about shooting turkeys, bear, mountain lion and mule deer in Arizona, from the Kaibab Plateau to Chevelon Canyon, I've not been able to find anywhere he wrote about killing one here. If someone knows of one of his books or magazine articles that does talk about it, I'd be interested in knowing about it.

 

You may be interested in the photo from Tales of Lonely Trails I've attached. It shows three Haughts, Zane Grey, and others on a bear hunt in 1919. The caption may be hard to read, but it says: "The author and his men: From left to right: Edd Haught; Nielsen; Haught the Bear Hunter; Al Doyle, pioneer Arizona guide; Lewis Pyle; Zane Grey; George Haught; Ben Copple; Lee Doyle."

 

As far as I can tell, Grey hunted with the Haughts in 1918 (when he brought his son) and 1919. I've found nothing after that.

 

Bill Quimby.

 

 

[billrquimby]

Incidentally, it's not surprising that Zane Grey saw elk and elk sign when hunting with the Haughts, Doyle Lee, and others in 1919. Elk from Yellowstone were released there beginning in 1913. The last of the Merriam's elk, if they ever were here, are believed to have been gone from Arizona a couple of decades earlier.

 

Bill Quimby

 

 

[idgaf]

Bill,

 

In your opinion were Merriam's elk ever here and if they were, were they native or transient?

Fred

[billrquimby]

Bill, In your opinion were Merriam's elk ever here and if they were, were they native or transient?

Fred

 

 

Fred, I have no idea. I'm just suspicious about word-of-mouth reports passed down over generations that aren't backed up by ample hard evidence.

 

A lot more Merriam antlers from the 1800s than fewer than a dozen would have survived in homes and barns if they were here in the numbers some people claim.

 

There also would have been more than three or four pictographs and petroglyphs purported to show elk in what now is prime elk country. There aren't.

 

Archaeologists also would have found lots of tools and jewelry made from elk antlers and teeth in their digs across northern Arizona. They haven't.

 

I'm especially suspicious about the only Arizona specimens of Merriam elk in the National Museum of Natural History that supposedly were collected in 1896 by a naturalist (Nelson) near the headwaters of the Black River when the guy was camping in Milligan Valley.

 

Why would he travel twenty miles or more on horseback when he could have shot them from his tent?

 

And finally, knowing how prolific elk are, I have trouble believing that they could have been wiped out from all of today's elk range in 15 to 20 years by a few hundred ranchers and hunters, many of them using Civil War-era single-shot rifles. What's more, the exterpation allegedly began during the last of the Indian wars, making elk hunting a risky business.

 

There is no doubt that Merriam elk were found in northern and central New Mexico because plenty of the hard evidence I've mentioned has been found there. New Mexico also has place names that mention elk.

 

Merriam elk from New Mexico certainly could have wandered south and west into Arizona, but if all of the elk we have here now could originate from fewer than 300 elk brought here from Yellowstone, there would have been many thousands of Merriam's elk across Arizona when the first Europeans reached here.

 

The Coronado Expedition came across our White Mountains in 1540 and despite day-by-day reporting by scribes, no sightings of elk were recorded, or at least I've not seen them in the three or four books I've read about Coronado's travels. In fact, by the time his expedition reached Vernon, it was almost out of food. A half dozen elk, which their hunters were capable of killing, would have fed the group for a while and the event would have been recorded.

 

Bill Quimby

[Alpinebullwinkle]

Maybe the Merriam's elk that have been reported were more like that jaguar in southern Arizona.......occasionally found tromping around "out of bounds".