While at the visitors center in Port Angeles, we visited with a park ranger about Roosevelt Elk and where to find them. Roosevelt Elk, also known as Olympic Elk, are larger bodied and darker than the Rocky Mountain Elk. These elk can be found along the Western Cascades from California to British Colombia. The herd on the Olympic Peninsula is the largest herd at more than 10,000 elk! After learning this, we embarked on our journey to find them. Luck would have it, we spotted two separate herds of more than thirty and a large, lone bull.
Our first sighting was about 20 minutes after sunrise near a farm in Mora. We drove upon a herd of thirty cows grazing in a pasture. Naturally, they seemed undisturbed by us. The following day a similar sighting happened near Forks, WA, while we were entering the national park near the Hoh Rainforest. Twenty cows and two stag bulls were feeding along the road. This herd, unlike the first, was quick to move. They did not appreciate our car stumbling upon their road crossing. We would later see these same elk that night about 2 miles further up the road. Finally, we witnessed a lone bull grazing in a bog; it was clear he had just shed his antlers. After seeing several cows, his size was remarkable. It was fun to see a different species of elk. After hunting Rocky Mountain Elk for most of my life (Bradley), these elk seemed different and yet still very much the same.
