| 2. The elk that made the tracks was relatively small. The
track measurements are smaller than listings in any of my field guides.
It may have been a juvenile. (Note: The big elk in Photo 36H was not the
elk that made the tracks.) 3. The tips of the toes are more blunt than
deer or antelope, but sharper than bison or cattle. The overall shape of
the track is more round than deer, antelope, mountain goat or bighorn
sheep. The floor of the track has a domed appearance – if you didn’t
notice this, go back and take another look at Photo 36G taken from the
side angle. Elk are unique in that the front ¾ or so of the foot is
concave, soft “subunguis” material, which produces the dome. The rear ¼
of the track is the toe pad, which is flat, hard material. A deer for
example has a larger pad and smaller subunguis, producing a track with a
flatter floor.
4. These tracks were fresh – probably less than 6 hours old. Tracks
in dusty substrate deteriorate quickly, and these tracks still had crisp
definition. We first found the tracks at about 10am, then saw them again
at 4pm on the return trip - the tracks had noticeably deteriorated by
then.
Special thanks to Dave Moskowitz of Wilderness Awareness School for
teaching me about the morphology of the elk foot that helped to identify
these tracks. Always good things to learn from nature.
BRIAN |
