A Question About Elk and Free-range Cattle

[Gatekeeper]

Please give your opinion on or relay any encounters that you have witnessed between elk living around free-range cattle.

I am curious if elk (if they have an alternative) avoid areas that are being used by cattle or will they intermingle with the cattle? I would like to read about some eyewitness accounts and encounters between the two species that you may have witnessed.

Also, if elk are in an area with free-range cattle, do you think they (the elk) might pick up on the body language of the cattle and get nervous and leave an area when the cattle get nervous?

The reason I ask these questions is I recently returned from an elk hunt in an area that had a lot of free range cattle and from what I saw all of the elk sightings that I encountered were at higher elevations in terrain that the cattle didn’t bother going into. My hunting partner and I also had an encounter with a small herd of elk that were a half mile +- away and shortly after looking in our direction the elk ran back into the timber. We later learned that a few yards down a slope from us was a herd of cattle that may have gotten our wind and started getting nervous. During the trip I had several encounters with the free-range cattle and they would run out of an area anytime they got wind of me. The cattle in this area acted very wild.

[fatman]

Tom, not sure about elk, but I've hunted deer quite a bit in SWKS where they intermingle with cattle...and yes, I believe that they do pay attention to the demeanor of the cattle.  This can be good or bad, sometimes the cattle get accustomed to vehicles and people, and the deer CAN follow suit (though not always)...

I would guess that the area you were in would tend to produce cattle that were pretty skittish; coyotes, bears, and I'm guessing mt. lions, as well as the human traffic...

Saw a show this week on one of the OD Channels that showed hunting mulies using Montana Decoy Cattle to sneak up on the deer...they were ultimately successful (longbow no less)    

[rappstar]

I hunted a unit in CO last year that had a lot of cattle.  They were all over the area we were camped...had them in camp a few times.  

The friendly CDOW officer came thru to check tags and chat.  He said that the elk that were spending the summer in this area had moved b/c the cattle in the area had just been moved in from a different area.  I specifically asked if the cattle will effect our hunt, his opinion was that the elk and cattle don't mix well.

We hunted anyways and ended up seeing a few elk...one here and one there.

[JimB]

I have run trail cameras for several years on National Forest where cows are sometimes grazed.When the cows arrive,all I get are cow pictures,even at night.Before the cows,I get deer,elk,bears,sometimes moose and mountain lions.

I always theorized that the racket the cows made moving through the timber and blowdowns,unnerved the other animals.

On the other hand,I once saw a herd of elk interspersed with cattle on a semi-open sagebrush flat.Some of the elk were bedded,all looked relaxed and there were plenty of cows among them.

I'm not sure what the real answer is.Maybe it varies from area to area.

I believe all animals will key in on other animals reactions,including cattle.

[kadbow]

I've seen them side by side but overall would say the elk would rather be where there are no cows.  Sheep are even worse.  They definitely pay attention to spooked/nervous cows.

[BobCo 1965]

In my experience, cows can ruin an elk hunt. I have seen them somewhat close together but try calling an elk past a cow and it will not work well. Whitetail deer sure don't seem to mind them much though.

[John Scifres]

I'd guess it depends on the density but the times I have been where cattle are, I have seen fewer elk.  You can use this to your advantage though.

[Orion]

Depends on the circumstances, location I guess.  I've seen elk intermingle with cattle.  In fact, tried stalking a raghorn bull in Colorado a few years back that was feeding with a small herd of cattle.  Don't know whether it was the wind or the cattle that tipped him off, but he made me and slinked out of there.  That wasn't the only time I've seen elk in proximity to cattle.  I do think that elk pay attention to cattle, and if something spooks the cattle, the elk will respond accordingly.

Elk going higher than cattle I don't think is their attempt to get away from the cattle.  They just like it high, particularly early in the season.

[larryh]

i have ran cattle in the mountains on blm, nat'l forest, and owned land for most of my life. elk are herd animals sort of like cattle and whether it's a bunch of bulls or a cow/calf herd, they will sort of stick together as they graze through an area. they sometimes will be scattered among cows, sometimes be at the fringes. it varies as much as cattle themselves. typically there are no more than 15-20 pairs in a "bunch" of cattle the way they use our range and elk and deer can often be seen among them. when we start gathering and leave 200+ pairs at the end of a day to pick up the next morning, wild animals pretty much avoid them.
during the rut all bets are off as the bulls split up, immature cow elk are pursued all over the country, and cow/calf bunches are split apart by dominant bulls.
in the winter both cow and bull elk mix with our cattle on our range land and fight with them for feed.
once when i ran some yearlings a lot of them hooked up with elk and were a bugger to get out of the hills.
our cows run from people because we train them to. it saves them from being shot and harassed and keeps them away from roads. we do that by driving slow and quiet and turning a bunch of hard biting dogs on any cow that stays within sight.

[Missouri Sherpa]

In the lower mountain elevation areas I have hunted elk and cattle do readily mix, in smaller groups as Larryh has indicated.  Hard to say if there would not be more elk in an area if there were no cows competing for the same grass.  Cattle tend to leave a lot of processed grass in their wake and I like to avoid camping in their midst if at all possible.  I do not eno****er cattle in the higher elevations/wilderness areas I have been hunting for the past several years.

[larryh]

sherpa, cattle and elk have close to the same diet on an annual basis, with cattle utilizing more of the grasses in the winter than elk.
on an average elk use 64% grass, 20% browse, and 16% forbs on annual basis. cattle use 81% grass, 12% forbs and 7% browse. we don't go to the mountains until well after the elk have moved through with their newborn calves and went to the alpine meadows where they summer. we are out of there before they move back down in the late fall
we use proper range management practices that benefit all wildlife along with the regulated numbers we put on open range.
"open range" is a misleading term where i live. because of land grants given before washington became a state, our land is a checkerboard of private, railroad, federal and state land. typically every other section is owned by a different entity.
i write checks to three family's, burlington northern railroad, boise cascade lumber co., and the federal gov't. for the graze i use. i also own 14,600 acres right in the center of where i run cattle that is open for use by everybody and all animals.
might be different in the mountain states.

[Gatekeeper]

Thank you for your input.

[Missouri Sherpa]

I used to hunt in the Wyoming Bighorns, and in the Castle mountains of Montana.  I pretty much stopped going to these places 5-6 years ago.  That time frame was a very dry stretch and the cattle grubbed off every last blade of grass in those areas.  A grasshopper would have to pack a lunch to visit those areas and you had to go several miles from the trailhead and salt blocks to find enough grass to keep your pack animals.  Elk become non existant in these areas.  Even though elk and cattle have roughly the same diet the elk seem to disperse their excrement over a larger range.   Somehow I don't mind having to remove a few elk droppings to set up my tent but big numbers of cowpies are another story.  Proper range management that limits grazing and prevents grazing down to bare earth is a worthy goal.  Unfortunately in dry years when there isn't enough grass and the same numbers of cattle are introduced into an area the results are devastating, especially when you have 2-3 years back to back of exceptionally dry conditions.  If you have not witnessed this phenomenon you are lucky, it is sickening to see.  There doesn't seem to be any mechanism or common sense to make allowances for years of poor forage production to remove cattle when the grass is running short.  It's not the cows fault.  They are only doing their job.  The cattelman rents the grazing and has an expectation to be able to keep his cows fed for a certain amount of time.  There needs to be some oversight to enforce pulling cattle off the range when it has been sufficently used up before overgrazing occurs.   I grew up on a farm in Missouri where we ran 600 cow calf pairs and I got my degree in Agriculture, BS Ag, University of Missouri '79.  I have a good understanding of the industry and sympathy for the needs of the cattleman.  When I see what I have seen (what has been seen cannot be unseen) I have become and will be, an advocate for reducing grazing rights on public lands until there are mechanisms to limit this kind of damage.  Public lands in the Northwest probably have a lot more rainfall and the dry years with overgrazing much less frequent and may not be an issue like it is in Montana and Wyoming.

[Michael Pfander]

I just got back from a hunt in South San Juan Wilderness.  I went five days without seeing another person.  The cattle and the elk seemed to prefer separation to shared space.  All of the areas with high cattle sign had every little elk sign.  As said previously the elk were at least 1000' higher than the cattle.  
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[RonH]

I just returned from an elk hunt in Colorado. The area was dry this year and the animals were concentrated due to less feed than in other years. We found the elk mixed with the cattle this year. We had cows and elk that were bedded together when we busted them out. This area is low elevation 8 to 9 thousand feet. .....

[centaur]

Just got back from 7 days in the Bighorns. Didn't see any elk, but the cows were everywhere, being a real pain in the butt. What they don't eat, they crap on. You had to use stealth to get around them, but it didn't matter, 'cause the elk weren't in the same country with them. Dry and hot didn't help either, but the moo cows are the bane of elk country, IMHO.