ELK KILLS

[liontracker]

Is anyone else seeing alot of elk kills lately ? I'm seeing 75% elk vs 25% deer.

[Spanky]

not up here yet. We have a deer herd that is huge and they are easy pickings right now for the wolves and cougars with the deep snow

[liontracker]

It might be because we have so many elk, but I can stand at an elk kill and be within 400 yds of a deer almost every time. I Think our lions are selecting elk over deer. Might be the lions have learned there is more food per kill on an elk. Natural selection ?

[R Severe]

The cats seem to be selecting elk here as well. I'm finding 3 elk to 1 mule deer.
The coyotes are doing their best to keep things even, they are hammering our deer.

This is in the Blues of eastern OR

[Mike Leonard]

Tim,

It's been that way down here south of the line for a long time now. Over the past 15 years as I documented in my 2004 article Lion Kills in Full Cry it has seemed to be a generational thing. I believe lion kittens growing up in an area where many more elk abound than do deer, you will see their preference shift to elk. Although mule deer may be the prefered food source for the cougar much as the cottontail rabbit is for the bobcat, in years or cycles when the population of the primary food source dwindles they will suppliment with elk, rats, turkeys, sheep, cattle or whatever to survive. Our deer population has rebounded a good deal but I still see these generationaly trained cougars killing elk over deer. Females with sub adults and or kittens really do well on elk, and they can kill a good sized elk, base camp the kids around it for a good while and not have to worry when they go out flirting around.

Look for deep , dark north facing slopes with dark rocky conifer pockets and plenty of rocks . They like to make an elk kill in these holes where it remains cold, isolated and offeres protection of rocks, and tree cover from the air which also aids in keeping aerial scavengers from sighting and blowing the whistle on the kill prematurly.

[tntoutfitting]

Cougars do definitly learn to specialize in certain species. We have documented cases in Alberta of collared cats preying on sheep nearly exclusively. Another noted tom near Nordegg took down wild horses as his main diet even though "regular' prey species were fairly abundant. Our really large toms have a definate preferance for moose. Took another big tom in Dec. that preyed almost entirely on horses (hunted him for three seasons and that was his prey of choice).

[notellm]

I am hoping and praying for a lion permit, in this one area up here. There is a tom who eats moose all winter. Once in a while you will find a elk or mule deer but mostly moose.

[liontracker]

Has he killed any bulls or just cows and calves ?

[notellm]

One bull but he had shed is paddles already. Most have a hole behind there ear you can put your thumb in. He has got it figured out for sure. If I find anymore kills I will take some pics of them to post. The snow is getting real deep up in this country.