Elk

The elk above was lying in the snow and chewing his cud between the Vermillion Lakes and Highway 1 near Banff this afternoon.  Elk are a lot easier to photograph here than they are in Waterton.  Why?  Because they live in the park and haven't been hunted for many generations.  The elk in Waterton wander out of the park from time to time onto an indian reservation where they are hunted.

We learned this from a couple of Italian grad students we met while staying in Waterton a while back.  The grad students were studying the wariness of elk and having done so in Europe they were now in Canada.  Among their methods were to observe the elk from afar and see how often they looked up and around.  Their location and cover, the degree of human hunting, and predators all contributed to wariness.  In Waterton they are moderately wary of humans, in Banff they practically ignore you at times.  The grad students had actually correlated the number of generations it took for wariness to wane.

This bull wasn't too bothered by me as I stayed in the car, about 15 meters away.