The King
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The
notorious No.6 died this past February, and this has made for
a quiet autumn rutting season nearly concluded among the elk
(C. Canadensis nelsoni) on Yellowstone’s
northern range. The late bull has been described in the local
media as the “Elvis of elk.” He was quite popular with the girls,
er, cows. “It was certainly eerily calm this fall compared to
when No.6 was around,” Yellowstone elk
biologist P.J. White
told AP. When found last winter, it seems No.6 had attempted
to jump over a barbed wire fence on a ranch just north of the
Park, got tripped-up, and ended up on his back with his great
antlers underneath him, and suffocated while trapped between two
boulders. He was approximately fifteen years old (some elk live
to be twenty, so he was on the cusp of old age) and weighed 725
pounds (average mature bull — 700). No.6 got his numerical
moniker because he was studied and eartagged by wildlife
biologists a few years ago as he was maturing to be the dominant
bull in the area around Mammoth Hot Springs, the administrative
headquarters of Yellowstone National Park.
No.6 had a long tenure as King of the Bull Elk. In his
heyday during the annual fall rut he was attended by a large
harem of cow elk (approximately 25), and his instinctual
possession of them made him the jealous type, normal for the
species. Every year, No. 6 jousted with up-and-coming bulls by
the common ungulate modus operandi of locking horns in a pushing
and shaking struggle, and he always prevailed. When bulls engage
in these contests, the level of testosterone-fueled aggression is
extreme. Hence the Darwinian theory of survival-of-the-fittest
plays out. The dominant bull breeds with many cows over a period
of weeks (as he attracts the harem by high pitched “bugling”),
and is responsible for the births of many healthy calves in the
late spring. Thus the gene pool is strengthened. But No. 6 took
his paternal-pugilistic instincts a bit too seriously.
Something in his walnut-sized brain couldn’t come to terms
with certain aspects of life in the modern world. Nothing in
millions of years of elk evolution had prepared No. 6 to
understand the essence of a motor vehicle. Cars have been
cruising through Yellowstone for almost a century, rolling past
mostly unimpressed wildlife, especially the bison that habitually
stand in the middle of roads serenely eyeing the traffic jams
they initiate. Although No. 6 wasn’t the first elk on record ever
to do it, he excelled at an activity that only enhanced his
legend. During the rut he routinely terrified tourists by
attacking their cars.
He stood by the road or in it near Mammoth and watched
vehicles slow down and crawl by him. Sometimes visitors stopped
for a photo op, occasionally annoying him. He seemed to zero in
on SUVs, as if the bigger the automobile, the more of a threat it
was to him and Yellowstone’s future elk gene pool. No. 6 took
them head on, his favorite approach was lowering his massive
horns and charging straight at the front grill and headlights. He
punctured radiators as if he knew that doing so would disable the
vehicle. He caused thousands of dollars worth of insurance claims
to be filed. He attacked two men in separate incidents; knocking
down one man, and causing another to need stitches. It got so bad
in his prime that Yellowstone elk biologists tranquillized him
twice — in 2004 and 2005 — and cropped his antlers to make them
less dangerous. Bulls shed their antlers in early winter and grow
new ones (initially in “velvet”) the following summer, so for
every rut they sport new horns.
According to AP, No. 6’s dressed carcass is in possession
of the woman who owns the ranch near Gardiner, Montana, where he
died. The Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation is offering the services
of a taxidermist to do a head and shoulder mount, as it seeks
permission to display No. 6’s regal head at its headquarters in
Missoula. So if all goes well, No.6 will attain the sort of elk
immortality that would have suited his bull elk ego.
After the usual genetic head-butting among surviving bulls
this fall, another dominant one has emerged in the Mammoth Hot
Springs area. The Yellowstone wildlife pointyheads have
identified him as the previously tagged No.10. As far as anyone
knows, No. 10 — though an impressive bull — has never attacked
a motor vehicle.
No. 10, I knew No.6. No. 6 was a friend
of mine. And you, sir, are no No. 6.
