WEBVTT - Ep. 366: Backwoods University - Eastern Elk 0:00:02.200 --> 0:00:06.159 Welcome to Backwoods University, a place where we focus on wildlife, 0:00:06.320 --> 0:00:09.320 wild places and the people who dedicate their lives to 0:00:09.360 --> 0:00:12.840 conserving both. Big shout out to Onyx Hunt for their support. 0:00:13.320 --> 0:00:17.160 I'm your host, Lake Pickle. On this episode, we're focusing 0:00:17.200 --> 0:00:20.040 in on the Star of September, the object of desire 0:00:20.120 --> 0:00:22.959 for most hunters in North America, and the mammal with 0:00:23.200 --> 0:00:27.040 arguably the most recognizable mating call out there. We're talking 0:00:27.160 --> 0:00:30.240 about Elk, but not so much where they are right now. 0:00:30.360 --> 0:00:49.720 That's too easy. We're talking about where they've been. I 0:00:49.760 --> 0:00:53.560 remember the whole thing vividly. Every step that Elk made 0:00:53.560 --> 0:00:56.200 come in my direction, filling the tension increase on my 0:00:56.240 --> 0:00:59.040 bowstring as I tried to perfectly time my draw so 0:00:59.080 --> 0:01:01.600 that he wouldn't see me, the bugle that he sounded 0:01:01.600 --> 0:01:04.399 when he was just twenty two steps away. I can 0:01:04.440 --> 0:01:06.399 replay all of it. It's like it lives on some 0:01:06.440 --> 0:01:10.120 sort of greatest Memories highlights that just stays inside my brain. 0:01:13.000 --> 0:01:15.080 Any hunter will tell you that while all hunts are 0:01:15.120 --> 0:01:17.880 special in their own right, there's just some that stick 0:01:17.920 --> 0:01:21.120 out more than others. In May of twenty seventeen, I 0:01:21.160 --> 0:01:22.959 was told I was gonna get my first chance at 0:01:23.000 --> 0:01:25.360 an archery bull elk, and I promise you I'm not 0:01:25.520 --> 0:01:28.240 indulging the story when I say that I'm surprised I 0:01:28.280 --> 0:01:31.080 didn't have to restring my bow because I practiced so much. 0:01:31.120 --> 0:01:33.920 From that day forward up until the first week of September, 0:01:33.959 --> 0:01:36.920 when I hit the interstate and headed west. Every morning 0:01:37.120 --> 0:01:40.440 and every evening I was shooting. I was practicing at 0:01:40.440 --> 0:01:43.200 further distances than before. I was shooting more arrows per 0:01:43.240 --> 0:01:45.400 session than I normally did. I would even go as 0:01:45.440 --> 0:01:47.440 far as running laps to get my heart rate up 0:01:47.440 --> 0:01:49.600 so I could really get some practice shooting while my 0:01:49.640 --> 0:01:52.280 heart was pumping. I was doing everything that I could 0:01:52.360 --> 0:01:58.480 think of to get ready. I remember that first morning, myself, Will, Jordan, 0:01:58.480 --> 0:02:00.600 and Troy hiking up the mountain the star at the hunt. 0:02:00.760 --> 0:02:03.520 At dawn, the first sound of a piercing bugle hit 0:02:03.560 --> 0:02:05.400 my ears and it fell on me like some sort 0:02:05.440 --> 0:02:08.720 of dark cloud. It was a nerves butterflies in your 0:02:08.720 --> 0:02:11.560 stomach type of feeling or downright anxiety that I had 0:02:11.639 --> 0:02:14.840 never felt around a hunt before. Could I really do this? 0:02:15.280 --> 0:02:17.800 Could I make the shot when it counted? Could I 0:02:17.840 --> 0:02:19.760 hold it together when there was a one thousand pound 0:02:19.840 --> 0:02:22.320 animal standing bow range from me when the biggest thing 0:02:22.360 --> 0:02:24.440 I had ever hunted prior to was a white tail. 0:02:24.800 --> 0:02:27.799 Could I do it? I mean, really, could I actually 0:02:27.840 --> 0:02:32.760 do it? I didn't know. Days one, two, and three 0:02:32.800 --> 0:02:34.840 of the hunt went by without me getting an answer 0:02:34.840 --> 0:02:37.360 to that question. There was plenty of hiking, plenty of 0:02:37.400 --> 0:02:40.480 hearing elk, seeing elk, and one really close call that 0:02:40.480 --> 0:02:43.400 didn't quite pan out, And I remember the entire time 0:02:43.480 --> 0:02:46.080 I was at a war inside my own mind, telling 0:02:46.120 --> 0:02:48.680 myself constantly to quit worrying, that I had done the 0:02:48.680 --> 0:02:50.640 work necessary to be ready for this and I needed 0:02:50.639 --> 0:02:54.040 to enjoy it. But still the nerves persisted, and I'm 0:02:54.040 --> 0:02:56.320 most sure that as much as I tried to hide it, 0:02:56.520 --> 0:02:58.920 the nerves that I was dealing with was becoming fairly 0:02:58.960 --> 0:03:01.720 evident to the group. I still remember Will saying to 0:03:01.760 --> 0:03:05.480 me several times, stay calm, wait for the right shot, 0:03:05.639 --> 0:03:09.600 and when it presents itself, slam Duncan you can do it? 0:03:10.360 --> 0:03:13.680 I know you can. The morning of day four, we 0:03:13.720 --> 0:03:16.480 glassed a small herd early about twenty to thirty head 0:03:16.480 --> 0:03:19.239 of elk, mostly cows, with one big herd bull and 0:03:19.360 --> 0:03:22.120 five to six satellites. We stayed with them, and we 0:03:22.160 --> 0:03:24.240 watched them head up the northwest side of a mountain, 0:03:24.360 --> 0:03:27.920 presumably to bed down. With the west northwest winds that 0:03:27.960 --> 0:03:30.440 we had that day, we hatched the plans to circle 0:03:30.440 --> 0:03:32.600 around the east side of the mountain and close in 0:03:32.720 --> 0:03:35.320 slowly where we thought they would be betted. It took 0:03:35.400 --> 0:03:37.680 us about an hour and twenty minutes of crawling through 0:03:37.720 --> 0:03:41.200 live rocks and dense timber before getting to our intended spot. 0:03:41.480 --> 0:03:43.480 The moment it truly started to get real is when 0:03:43.520 --> 0:03:45.680 we crested a small rise and the wind that was 0:03:45.720 --> 0:03:48.160 blowing in our face brought along with it the strong 0:03:48.280 --> 0:03:50.960 scent of elk and rut. To my fellow elk hunters 0:03:50.960 --> 0:03:53.520 out there that have smelled this before, you know exactly 0:03:53.560 --> 0:03:57.760 what I'm talking about. Will quickly signaled for myself and 0:03:57.840 --> 0:03:59.600 Jordan to creep forward as far as we thought we 0:03:59.600 --> 0:04:02.600 could get and find a good setup. We slipped about 0:04:02.640 --> 0:04:05.320 sixty more yards ahead before a deafening bugle let us 0:04:05.400 --> 0:04:07.560 know that for one we were in the right spot 0:04:07.640 --> 0:04:11.080 and two in no need of getting any closer. Will 0:04:11.200 --> 0:04:13.880 dropped back about seventy five yards and began to call, 0:04:13.920 --> 0:04:18.720 and chaos ensued almost immediately several bulls began bugling back, 0:04:19.120 --> 0:04:22.360 cows began to mew. We heard twigs snapping, and through 0:04:22.360 --> 0:04:25.080 the thick timber and shadows, we started to pick up movement. 0:04:25.560 --> 0:04:28.440 The elk were responding so rapidly it's as if they 0:04:28.440 --> 0:04:30.760 were wondering how these other elk that they were now 0:04:30.800 --> 0:04:33.839 hearing managed to get so close to them without them knowing. 0:04:34.480 --> 0:04:36.839 In a matter of minutes, I caught a confirmed glimpse 0:04:36.880 --> 0:04:39.599 of antlers coming our way. As the seconds went on, 0:04:39.720 --> 0:04:42.200 the glimpses became more frequent, until I finally got a 0:04:42.200 --> 0:04:45.560 good look a young satellite bull walking in our direction. 0:04:46.200 --> 0:04:48.720 And to be fully clear here, neither the young nor 0:04:48.760 --> 0:04:51.920 the satellite attributes about this bull phazed me. I had 0:04:52.000 --> 0:04:55.120 full intentions on shooting him. I drew my bow, and 0:04:55.200 --> 0:04:57.960 although he closed in to ten yards, he stayed behind 0:04:57.960 --> 0:05:01.360 a blown down tree top the entire time no shock. 0:05:03.440 --> 0:05:05.640 After a few seconds of standing there at that close 0:05:05.680 --> 0:05:07.960 of distance, you could see the bulls start to piece 0:05:08.000 --> 0:05:10.720 together that something wasn't right. He threw his head back, 0:05:10.880 --> 0:05:13.960 wheeled around, and began trotting back towards his group, and 0:05:14.000 --> 0:05:17.080 my hopes began to melt. I remember thinking to myself. 0:05:17.240 --> 0:05:19.680 He's about to spook the entire herd running back into 0:05:19.680 --> 0:05:24.520 them like that. Thankfully, Will and all his experience saw 0:05:24.560 --> 0:05:27.200 this happening and bugled right as the young bull was 0:05:27.279 --> 0:05:30.880 running back, and immediately he was answered. This time it 0:05:30.920 --> 0:05:34.400 wasn't a satellite, it was the herd bull. Will timed 0:05:34.400 --> 0:05:36.919 his bugle so perfectly that he painted the picture that 0:05:36.960 --> 0:05:38.920 the young bull was being run off by a new 0:05:38.960 --> 0:05:42.599 bull down below. I saw him almost immediately, not glimpses, 0:05:42.680 --> 0:05:45.719 not bits and pieces. I saw him. It's almost like 0:05:45.760 --> 0:05:49.280 he wanted to be seen. He was fifty yards enclosing. 0:05:49.839 --> 0:05:52.239 I remember watching his head tilted back as he marched 0:05:52.240 --> 0:05:54.680 through the trees, the sun and shadows dancing off his 0:05:54.720 --> 0:06:01.920 antlers with every step. As he closed into thirty five 0:06:02.000 --> 0:06:04.120 yards on a steady march, his head went behind the 0:06:04.160 --> 0:06:07.200 trunk of a large tree. I drew my bow and anchored. 0:06:07.720 --> 0:06:09.560 Just a few more steps, that's all I needed, and 0:06:09.600 --> 0:06:12.080 he would be broadside at top pen range. I had 0:06:12.080 --> 0:06:14.280 a mouth call in and I was ready to stop him, 0:06:14.320 --> 0:06:16.440 but there was no need. He stopped on his own, 0:06:16.920 --> 0:06:20.760 perfectly broadside at twenty two yards and bugled. It was 0:06:20.800 --> 0:06:29.359 like it was meant to be got. I remember looking 0:06:29.360 --> 0:06:31.960 through my side at my pen saying to myself, there's 0:06:31.960 --> 0:06:35.720 your shot. Smoked. I smoked it. 0:06:36.200 --> 0:06:36.680 I smoked. 0:06:37.120 --> 0:06:39.240 In a blink, it was over. The next thing I 0:06:39.279 --> 0:06:42.560 saw was white fletchings burying themselves a double lung shot. 0:06:43.080 --> 0:06:45.200 I had done it. I couldn't believe it. I had 0:06:45.240 --> 0:06:48.520 actually done it. Will came up and hugged me. Jordan 0:06:48.520 --> 0:06:50.839 and Troy high fived me, and we followed the sixty 0:06:50.920 --> 0:06:54.200 yard blood trail and recovered my first archery bowl. In 0:06:54.200 --> 0:06:57.400 that moment, It's like all the nerves, butterflies, and anxiety 0:06:57.440 --> 0:06:59.400 that I had been dealing with was flipped around and 0:06:59.440 --> 0:07:03.240 compounded into the most surreal gratitude and satisfaction that I 0:07:03.240 --> 0:07:06.880 had ever experienced in my hunting life. Archery l hunting 0:07:07.000 --> 0:07:09.520 the ultimate as far as I was concerned, and it 0:07:09.560 --> 0:07:11.840 had fully lived up to the hype. And I just 0:07:11.960 --> 0:07:15.040 couldn't believe that I was standing there getting to experience 0:07:15.080 --> 0:07:22.320 it like this. I'm not lost for words unless I 0:07:22.360 --> 0:07:23.120 don't know what to say. 0:07:23.200 --> 0:07:29.560 Man, holy smokes. 0:07:32.000 --> 0:07:34.960 But now, as always, let's zoom out on all this. 0:07:37.520 --> 0:07:39.600 Why am I telling you this story in the first place? 0:07:39.720 --> 0:07:41.640 Why do I think it's important that you hear about 0:07:41.640 --> 0:07:44.280 my first archery elk. When you think of elk hunting, 0:07:44.600 --> 0:07:47.680 what do you think of? For me growing up, it 0:07:47.800 --> 0:07:50.920 meant Primos's truth about hunting elk videos, the mantra of 0:07:51.240 --> 0:07:53.760 go west, young man, because of course you had to 0:07:53.800 --> 0:07:56.320 go west to hunt elk, right. I mean? There are 0:07:56.400 --> 0:08:00.960 Western big game species, arguably the most iconic Western game species. 0:08:01.040 --> 0:08:04.520 Everyone knows that, But has it always been that way? 0:08:05.240 --> 0:08:07.400 You've probably heard of the Rocky Mountain elk. Heck, you're 0:08:07.440 --> 0:08:09.920 probably familiar with the Roosevelt elk, but have you ever 0:08:09.920 --> 0:08:12.440 heard of the Eastern elk? To sharpen all of us 0:08:12.520 --> 0:08:15.400 up on this subject, let's dive into some quick history, 0:08:15.640 --> 0:08:18.720 because while elk are, without a question of predominantly Western 0:08:18.760 --> 0:08:21.520 species today, I'm going to answer my own question in 0:08:21.560 --> 0:08:31.640 saying it's not always been that way. The following are 0:08:31.680 --> 0:08:34.920 excerpts regarding the presence of Eastern elk in different states 0:08:34.920 --> 0:08:38.440 throughout the country from a published paper titled Muri nineteen 0:08:38.559 --> 0:08:44.079 fifty one. Elk of North America. In Arkansas, there is 0:08:44.160 --> 0:08:46.640 one record to the effect that in eighteen thirty four, 0:08:46.760 --> 0:08:49.600 herds of buffalo and elk still roamed in the northeastern 0:08:49.640 --> 0:08:52.520 region near the Missouri boundary east of the Black River, 0:08:52.760 --> 0:08:55.439 and it's reasonable to suppose that the elk originally had 0:08:55.440 --> 0:08:58.559 a wider distribution in the state, but available literature does 0:08:58.600 --> 0:09:01.560 not show it and lose Siana. A man named doctor 0:09:01.600 --> 0:09:04.360 Milton Dunn wrote a letter documenting elk in the state 0:09:04.440 --> 0:09:07.600 in eighteen twenty nine, and there's also a recorded killing 0:09:07.640 --> 0:09:10.040 of a bull elk with a gross weight of seven 0:09:10.160 --> 0:09:13.800 hundred and four pounds near Madison Parish on Walnut Bayou 0:09:14.120 --> 0:09:17.240 in December of eighteen forty two. In the early days 0:09:17.240 --> 0:09:20.080 of Illinois, elk reigns throughout the entire state, where the 0:09:20.080 --> 0:09:23.680 prairies were preeminently their home, but they disappeared relatively quickly. 0:09:23.880 --> 0:09:26.880 An explored named Micheau recorded one being killed by his 0:09:27.000 --> 0:09:30.880 guide in seventeen ninety five in Sack County, Iowa. All 0:09:30.920 --> 0:09:34.280 of the earliest settlers united in saying that elk were plentiful, 0:09:34.480 --> 0:09:37.920 they were found from solitary individuals up to five hundred 0:09:37.920 --> 0:09:39.520 and a herd, and they were known to be an 0:09:39.520 --> 0:09:42.679 important food source, and that elkhorns were recorded being picked 0:09:42.720 --> 0:09:46.560 up by the wagon load. In eighteen fifty six in Michigan. 0:09:46.640 --> 0:09:48.760 In the early parts of the nineteenth century, elk were 0:09:48.800 --> 0:09:52.080 common in parts of the Lower Peninsula. In Kentucky, elk 0:09:52.120 --> 0:09:54.840 were abundant and were used as food by travelers. We 0:09:54.920 --> 0:09:57.959 know this through famed stories like Dangle Boons encountering vast 0:09:57.960 --> 0:10:00.240 herds of elk and bison. We also know of other 0:10:00.280 --> 0:10:03.480 early explorers, such as John Strader, James Jaeger, and Colonel 0:10:03.520 --> 0:10:06.600 Thomas Walker that documented great numbers of elk in Kentucky 0:10:06.640 --> 0:10:09.200 as well. And this is just listing off a few 0:10:09.280 --> 0:10:11.240 of the states in the East where there's record of 0:10:11.320 --> 0:10:14.400 eastern elk. I think it's evident there's a bigger story here, 0:10:14.720 --> 0:10:17.680 one that goes mostly unknown. And although I feel like 0:10:17.760 --> 0:10:20.520 we've been here before, because this feels much like the 0:10:20.559 --> 0:10:24.040 bison episode, I'm led to ask what happened. I mean, 0:10:24.080 --> 0:10:26.280 I don't know about y'all, but personally, I think it'd 0:10:26.320 --> 0:10:28.200 be pretty sweet if I could call in a bugling 0:10:28.240 --> 0:10:30.720 bull in my home state of Mississippi. I mean, a 0:10:30.760 --> 0:10:35.720 guy can dream, right, But more importantly, let's get some answers. 0:10:36.400 --> 0:10:39.360 Jim Heffelfinger is no stranger to the Meat Eater Network. 0:10:39.440 --> 0:10:42.120 He's also a bona fide servant nut or at least 0:10:42.280 --> 0:10:44.600 that's what his Instagram handle would lead me to believe, 0:10:44.960 --> 0:10:47.920 as well as being the wildlife science coordinator for the 0:10:47.960 --> 0:10:51.080 Arizona Game and Fish Department. When I was scouring the 0:10:51.120 --> 0:10:53.680 earth for a source on eastern Elk, it became evident 0:10:53.800 --> 0:10:56.880 very quickly that Jim Heffelfinger was the man to talk to. 0:10:57.559 --> 0:10:58.439 Here's Jim. 0:10:58.840 --> 0:11:02.080 There's less known about some of these iconic species in 0:11:02.120 --> 0:11:05.800 the East because they disappeared so fast. The settlement started 0:11:05.920 --> 0:11:08.520 east to west like a slow burn across the continent, 0:11:08.600 --> 0:11:12.360 and you saw the disappearance of these animals that were 0:11:12.520 --> 0:11:16.040 we think are charismatic because they are, but the bottom 0:11:16.040 --> 0:11:18.480 lines is they were filled with meat and wrapped in leather, 0:11:18.520 --> 0:11:22.800 and the early early people, early Europeans that came to 0:11:22.840 --> 0:11:24.400 the continent needed. 0:11:24.120 --> 0:11:26.319 All that stuff. They were natural resources for them. 0:11:26.400 --> 0:11:31.720 So they disappeared pretty quickly in the East before scientists 0:11:31.800 --> 0:11:34.720 got cranked up and naturalists started describing things and writing 0:11:34.760 --> 0:11:37.000 things down. So that's why we know very little about 0:11:37.040 --> 0:11:40.000 some of these that disappeared early. The map that I 0:11:40.040 --> 0:11:44.720 sent you just showed that disappearance of elk really from 0:11:44.720 --> 0:11:47.920 the east to the west, and the original the original 0:11:47.960 --> 0:11:51.440 distribution of eastern elk. Strangely enough, it seemed like it 0:11:51.480 --> 0:11:54.320 didn't cover the entire continent. It seemed to not go 0:11:54.400 --> 0:11:58.000 out to the eastern seaboard all the way, which is unusual, 0:11:58.040 --> 0:11:59.640 and it doesn't go all the way down to the 0:11:59.640 --> 0:12:04.960 Gulf coast all the weather's probably the southern half of Louisiana, Mississippi, Georgia, Alabama. 0:12:05.360 --> 0:12:10.280 There really isn't good records of elk in those historic times. 0:12:10.320 --> 0:12:12.079 If you go back to some of the fossil record 0:12:12.240 --> 0:12:14.679 a couple thousands of years ago, you'll find some elk there, 0:12:15.320 --> 0:12:18.200 but strangely enough, not at the time that people were 0:12:18.240 --> 0:12:20.280 starting to record things along the coast there. 0:12:20.640 --> 0:12:22.839 Yeah, because I noticed that. I mean, obviously, me being 0:12:22.880 --> 0:12:25.920 from Mississippi, I keyed end on that state. And while 0:12:26.320 --> 0:12:29.400 some of it is shaded the color for the eastern 0:12:29.440 --> 0:12:32.000 elk range, it says no record of elk. 0:12:32.720 --> 0:12:37.240 Right, Yeah, some of those southeastern states have no records 0:12:37.360 --> 0:12:39.160 of elk, and some of them have just a few 0:12:40.280 --> 0:12:42.880 in there, and so it doesn't seem like they came 0:12:43.040 --> 0:12:45.920 down into Florida, Like, no records in Florida. Down into 0:12:45.960 --> 0:12:49.160 Florida in historic times, there's a lot of old deer 0:12:49.280 --> 0:12:53.440 fossils in Florida from the place of scene, and that 0:12:53.520 --> 0:12:56.440 evolutionary history is an interesting one. But along the Gulf Coast, 0:12:56.480 --> 0:13:00.839 along the eastern seaboard, they seem to have been in there. 0:13:01.160 --> 0:13:04.280 Yeah, which is interesting because I thought, you know, when 0:13:04.640 --> 0:13:07.160 I was doing, you know, a look into bison in 0:13:07.200 --> 0:13:10.000 the eastern United States, there's a record of bison all 0:13:10.040 --> 0:13:12.920 the way into northern Florida, so I would have thought 0:13:12.920 --> 0:13:14.400 there would have been some elk in there too, But 0:13:14.559 --> 0:13:17.199 there's no fossil record for it, at least. 0:13:17.400 --> 0:13:19.640 And that's all we can say too, is that that 0:13:19.720 --> 0:13:22.200 we don't have evidence of it doesn't mean they weren't there. 0:13:22.360 --> 0:13:25.120 Although a lot of these a lot of these fossil sites, 0:13:25.160 --> 0:13:29.080 we have a lot of fossils of all these other 0:13:29.440 --> 0:13:32.400 for example, grassland species, and so when you get one 0:13:32.480 --> 0:13:35.680 that's missing, that's that it's a little stronger evidence that 0:13:35.720 --> 0:13:37.960 maybe it wasn't there. We would we would be picking 0:13:38.000 --> 0:13:40.520 up some fragments in there. But elk in the east 0:13:40.559 --> 0:13:44.200 certainly coexisted in some of those open grasslands and certainly 0:13:44.280 --> 0:13:48.960 in the central Great Plains with bison. And we're largely 0:13:49.000 --> 0:13:53.240 a grassland and mountain species early on, and people people 0:13:53.360 --> 0:13:57.200 sometimes say, well, the early elkward grassland species and then 0:13:57.200 --> 0:13:59.280 they shifted to a mountain species. 0:13:59.280 --> 0:14:00.520 But I think they were. 0:14:00.360 --> 0:14:05.040 Just at such broad ecological adaptability that they were in 0:14:05.080 --> 0:14:06.800 the mountains and they were in the grassland. And then 0:14:06.840 --> 0:14:10.200 when we took over basically the grasslands with our domestic 0:14:10.240 --> 0:14:14.520 grazers and our development and over exploitation before we had 0:14:15.120 --> 0:14:18.800 the conservation system we have now, they disappeared from those open, 0:14:18.880 --> 0:14:22.320 vulnerable areas. And then they existed in some of the 0:14:22.800 --> 0:14:24.800 areas with more security cover. And some of that was 0:14:24.840 --> 0:14:27.680 the west and the Rocky Mountains. Some of it you'll see, 0:14:27.720 --> 0:14:31.040 like one of the latest Eastern elk that was ever killed, 0:14:31.080 --> 0:14:32.960 I think was in Pennsylvania, and so there was other 0:14:33.000 --> 0:14:35.760 big blocks of forest that also provided that kind of 0:14:35.800 --> 0:14:39.040 security cover that allowed those Eastern elk to hold out 0:14:39.080 --> 0:14:40.560 the longest in some of those areas. 0:14:41.320 --> 0:14:43.960 Okay, so we're getting a whole lot of good information here, 0:14:44.160 --> 0:14:47.280 a better understanding of where these Eastern elk were, a 0:14:47.320 --> 0:14:50.920 better understanding of when they started to quote disappear. The 0:14:51.000 --> 0:14:54.240 fact that they didn't quite reach the eastern coastline, or 0:14:54.600 --> 0:14:56.880 the fact that we don't have much or any record 0:14:56.880 --> 0:15:00.920 of them in several Southeastern states like Mississippi or Alabama, 0:15:01.280 --> 0:15:04.280 some of the habitats the eastern elk inhabited. But before 0:15:04.280 --> 0:15:06.480 we get ahead of ourselves, I feel like there's a 0:15:06.600 --> 0:15:10.240 very important question that we need to answer early. What 0:15:10.400 --> 0:15:13.880 exactly is an eastern elk? Is it a subspecies? Is 0:15:13.880 --> 0:15:16.440 it different than a rocky mountain elk? Is there any 0:15:16.440 --> 0:15:17.160 difference at all. 0:15:17.720 --> 0:15:21.120 That's a good question because many people they start talking 0:15:21.120 --> 0:15:23.880 about eastern elk as if they were a well defined 0:15:23.920 --> 0:15:27.280 scientific thing, like a subspecies, Like you could go somewhere 0:15:27.320 --> 0:15:30.320 in a book and find the physical characteristics of an 0:15:30.320 --> 0:15:32.560 eastern elk and how it differed from other elk or 0:15:32.640 --> 0:15:36.360 even more recently genetic differences. But the fact is, one 0:15:36.440 --> 0:15:39.640 hundred years ago people took a box of crayolas and 0:15:39.680 --> 0:15:42.520 started drawing color polygons on a big map and started 0:15:42.600 --> 0:15:46.240 labeling these Eastern elk, rocky mountain elk, manitoban elk, and 0:15:46.240 --> 0:15:49.600 coloring them differently, and then even describing them in scientific 0:15:49.600 --> 0:15:52.760 papers one hundred years ago saying this one's darker, this 0:15:52.760 --> 0:15:55.120 one's a little smaller, And in reality they had one 0:15:55.160 --> 0:15:59.160 individual or two individual skins and skulls and museum. They 0:15:59.160 --> 0:16:01.040 took a few measurements and they said, you know, this 0:16:01.080 --> 0:16:03.600 is bigger, this is smaller. And that's what's happened with 0:16:03.800 --> 0:16:06.960 most of our elk subspecies, and most of the subspecies 0:16:07.160 --> 0:16:09.880 of a lot of things. They're thirty eight white tailed 0:16:09.880 --> 0:16:13.440 deer subspecies in North and South America. Those certainly are 0:16:13.480 --> 0:16:16.680 not valid subspecies. And so what we had was we 0:16:16.760 --> 0:16:19.360 had if you go back a little further in the 0:16:19.760 --> 0:16:21.800 Pliss scene, towards the end of the place the scene, 0:16:21.840 --> 0:16:26.000 there was not the last glacial maximum, which was Wisconsin, 0:16:26.080 --> 0:16:29.560 but before that was called the Illinois Glacial Maximum, and 0:16:30.120 --> 0:16:34.400 that glacier, that glacial period, that ice age, drew up 0:16:34.440 --> 0:16:36.680 and froze up a lot of the seawater and opened 0:16:36.760 --> 0:16:38.720 up the Bearing Strait that people talk about a lot. 0:16:38.920 --> 0:16:41.480 So we had elk coming over for the first time 0:16:41.520 --> 0:16:44.680 in North America in the late Pliso scene, probably a 0:16:44.680 --> 0:16:46.600 little more than one hundred thousand years ago, and that 0:16:46.680 --> 0:16:49.200 was the first time we had elk in North America. 0:16:49.400 --> 0:16:53.720 And then that Illinois Glacial period went away and melted 0:16:53.760 --> 0:16:56.200 and we got into what they called the Sangamoni and Interglacial, 0:16:56.240 --> 0:17:00.000 which is the interglacial between the Illinois and the latest 0:17:00.080 --> 0:17:03.920 Wisconsin one. That interglacial period where it warmed up, freed 0:17:04.000 --> 0:17:06.560 up the central part of the continent and allowed those 0:17:06.600 --> 0:17:10.120 elk to flow the rest of the way in. And incidentally, 0:17:10.160 --> 0:17:15.439 that's when the first primitive bison bison prisseus, came with 0:17:15.600 --> 0:17:18.600 elk at the same time and poured into what became 0:17:18.640 --> 0:17:22.800 the grasslands in North America. And that primitive elk then 0:17:22.880 --> 0:17:26.680 turned into bison latifrons, the big longhort, long horned bison. 0:17:27.080 --> 0:17:31.159 Then that turned into bison, bison, the recent bison. So 0:17:31.320 --> 0:17:34.640 elk and bison have that evolutionary kind of North American 0:17:34.680 --> 0:17:38.240 invasion history at the same time and occupied a lot 0:17:38.240 --> 0:17:40.840 of those same areas in North America. So those elk 0:17:40.920 --> 0:17:43.399 came in, they filled North America. They came almost to 0:17:43.440 --> 0:17:46.400 the eastern seaboard, like we were talking about, and they 0:17:46.440 --> 0:17:49.480 really weren't different. They just came in as one elk 0:17:49.920 --> 0:17:52.960 and occupied that whole continent. And so when we talk 0:17:53.000 --> 0:17:55.680 about eastern elk, and then we talk about the center 0:17:55.760 --> 0:17:57.960 part of the continent, they call Manitoban elk, which is 0:17:58.000 --> 0:18:00.440 the Great Plains, and then the Rocky Mountain elk which 0:18:00.440 --> 0:18:02.040 are in the Rocky Mountains. 0:18:01.840 --> 0:18:04.159 Those really probably were not any different. 0:18:04.760 --> 0:18:07.880 And when people have looked genetically at a few Eastern 0:18:07.960 --> 0:18:12.240 elk specimens, and whenever they look at Manitoban versus Rocky Mountain, 0:18:12.640 --> 0:18:15.320 they don't find any difference. So most of the elk 0:18:15.359 --> 0:18:18.000 in North America were really just elk, and we shouldn't 0:18:18.000 --> 0:18:21.160 get hung up on these subspecies. Now, modern genetics shows 0:18:21.160 --> 0:18:24.080 a difference between the roosevelts which are in the Pacific Northwest, 0:18:24.520 --> 0:18:27.360 and the Tuleialk, which are smaller antlers are a little 0:18:27.359 --> 0:18:31.840 different in central California. There's some genetic differences there, but 0:18:31.880 --> 0:18:34.800 those genetic differences are probably from the last couple hundred 0:18:34.880 --> 0:18:39.959 years of just their ranges retracting into isolated pockets and 0:18:40.000 --> 0:18:43.800 then evolving a little bit differently in small populations like 0:18:43.840 --> 0:18:46.760 the tule elk. Almost when extinct, there was just a 0:18:46.800 --> 0:18:50.000 handful of tule elk in California, and then they've come back, 0:18:50.320 --> 0:18:53.680 and so there's a real genetic bottleneck there, and any 0:18:53.720 --> 0:18:57.720 genetic differences may stem just from that genetic bottlenecking, But 0:18:57.760 --> 0:19:00.520 I wouldn't we certainly shouldn't get hung up about Eastern 0:19:00.600 --> 0:19:04.479 versus manitobin versus Rocky Mountain elk. They're really mostly our 0:19:04.600 --> 0:19:05.960 labels that we've just put. 0:19:05.760 --> 0:19:11.160 On them, So Rocky Mountain elk, manitoban elk, Eastern elk 0:19:11.480 --> 0:19:14.920 mostly just labels that we made up for the most part. 0:19:14.920 --> 0:19:18.160 To quote Jim directly, elk or just elk, which leads 0:19:18.160 --> 0:19:21.800 me to more questions. Because we see variances in body size, 0:19:21.840 --> 0:19:25.080 we see variances in antler size. If elk or just elk, 0:19:25.320 --> 0:19:27.359 would that mean that what we're seeing is more of 0:19:27.400 --> 0:19:30.560 a response to living in different habitats and climates rather 0:19:30.640 --> 0:19:33.400 than it being new to speciation right. 0:19:34.040 --> 0:19:39.199 Right, those are referred to just as ecotypes. So there 0:19:39.200 --> 0:19:41.879 are in certain areas animals that live in a forest 0:19:42.040 --> 0:19:44.439 versus grassland are going to start looking differently as they 0:19:44.440 --> 0:19:46.959 adapt to those local environments. So if you look at 0:19:46.960 --> 0:19:51.560 the eastern elk was first described by a naturis the 0:19:51.560 --> 0:19:54.399 first described for science, not the first time someone mentioned 0:19:54.400 --> 0:19:57.720 in elk, but first described for science in seventeen seventy seven, 0:19:58.520 --> 0:20:02.840 and that was described based on a painting that someone did, 0:20:02.920 --> 0:20:07.240 John James Audubon, who the Audubon Society was namesake. So 0:20:07.640 --> 0:20:12.040 John James Audubon painted a painting of elk, and the 0:20:12.080 --> 0:20:14.959 elk used were in eastern United States, so they were 0:20:15.000 --> 0:20:16.280 eastern elk that he painted. 0:20:17.080 --> 0:20:20.280 All right, this is both a very important and highly 0:20:20.359 --> 0:20:24.480 fascinating piece of this story, So lean in you all ready. 0:20:24.960 --> 0:20:28.280 In seventeen seventy seven, an early naturalist by the name 0:20:28.320 --> 0:20:31.560 of Exer Lebine was the first person to describe elk 0:20:31.640 --> 0:20:35.840 for scientific purposes. Seventy years later, John James Ottobon does 0:20:35.880 --> 0:20:39.320 a painting of eastern elk, and then in nineteen thirty five, 0:20:39.600 --> 0:20:44.040 a man named Vernon Bailey uses Oudobon's painting to scientifically 0:20:44.040 --> 0:20:48.400 describe this subspecies known as the eastern elk. To contextualize 0:20:48.400 --> 0:20:51.040 that a bit, imagine that you're told that you have 0:20:51.160 --> 0:20:53.959 to go and paint the next whitetail buck that you 0:20:54.000 --> 0:20:56.720 get on your trail camera, and then a scientist is 0:20:56.760 --> 0:21:00.480 going to be using your artistic expression to sign typically 0:21:00.480 --> 0:21:03.600 describe animals. I don't know about y'all, but the natural 0:21:03.640 --> 0:21:06.600 resource in science world is mighty lucky they didn't get 0:21:06.640 --> 0:21:10.080 stuck with me doing paintings for references in the eighteen hundreds. 0:21:10.920 --> 0:21:14.320 That'd been some bad descriptions. I'm just saying basing a 0:21:14.359 --> 0:21:17.240 scientific description off of someone's painting as wild. 0:21:17.720 --> 0:21:31.480 You know, so when you think about someone describing as 0:21:31.520 --> 0:21:34.840 subspecies and describing what color it is and basing it 0:21:34.920 --> 0:21:40.399 on whatever color brown John James Audubon dipped his paintbrush into, 0:21:40.840 --> 0:21:44.080 that's not really what we call science and good subspecies. 0:21:44.119 --> 0:21:47.119 And in fact, they saw that that original painting was 0:21:47.160 --> 0:21:51.480