Every day we observe a lot of different situations! Some situations are normal, some are just very strange! This
time a Lady catched in video Huge Elk Herd that were gathered outside their house. She recorded a big herd of elk that gathered at a neighbor’s house near Gearhart, Oregon.
She told ViralHog:
“This is a local elk herd but seeing them this close together does not happen often (I’ve never seen another video or picture before). My dad had been taking pictures of a smaller group of ten elk and walked back to our house and said ‘you might want to go back out because the elk seem to be gathering.’”
She told that it happened when she was walking with her sister and mother. Here is what she also told:
“We were met with a line of elk 10 yards in front of us. They were standing shoulder to shoulder across the entire street about 15 wide and 10 deep.
It was very intimidating so we immediately backed up around the corner and stood behind a parked car. A minute later, the elk all started walking towards us and gathered in the front yard as seen in the video.”
Elk sightings are not rare in Gearhart, which is located on the Oregon coast in a primarily rural region. But, as the witnesses’ comments in the film show, it was unusual to see such a huge herd gather on a residential street.
With roughly 125,000 elk, Oregon is the fifth-largest state in terms of elk population (Rocky Mountain at 65,000 and Roosevelt elk at 60,000). Elk are incredibly versatile and can survive in a variety of environments, including forests, deserts, mountains, and plains.
Elk play a crucial role in the forest’s life cycle by removing understory vegetation, allowing other plant and animal species to thrive.
Gray wolves and mountain lions, which thin herds by stealing old and weak elk, are two of their natural predators. Prior to 1500, it is believed that about 10 million elk roamed North America, but by 1907, that number had dropped to less than 100,000.
In fact, Elk National Park was the initial name suggested for what is now Olympic National Park, since it was supposed to be a reserve for declining elk herds.
These rare elk are being threatened by habitat loss and fragmentation caused by logging and road development. Forest management methods that prevent sunlight from reaching the forest floor and producing the flora that elk eat, such as clearcutting and replanting thick tree plantations, are also reducing elk habitat.
To provide gaps in the canopy while retaining old growth stands, creative forest management approaches are required to provide for vegetation that is critical to elk and many other species.
videosource:youtube
