California’s 8,421 elk records are among the heaviest tallies in this atlas, spread across 40 counties but anchored on the coast ranges. Marin County’s Point Reyes peninsula and the Phillip Burton Wilderness hold more than three thousand records, Humboldt County and Redwood National Park carry most of the rest, and smaller clusters run south through the Carrizo Plain and the inner Coast Range.
Three subspecies, one state
Three elk subspecies live in California. Roosevelt elk occupy the foggy north coast forests around Redwood National Park. Rocky Mountain elk hold the state’s northeastern corner. And tule elk, found nowhere else on earth, were reduced to a handful of animals in the San Joaquin Valley by the 1870s before protected herds rebuilt them; their records now run from Point Reyes National Seashore through the Tule Elk State Reserve and Carrizo Plain National Monument.
An even year with a late-summer crest
Reports stay steady in every month, rising modestly in August and September as the rut builds and herds gather in open grassland. That evenness is itself a California signature: between coastal Roosevelt country, tule elk grassland, and mountain herds, some part of the state’s elk range is always in its active season.
Status in California
NatureServe lists elk as SNR, Unranked, in California, and USGS NAS does not list it as nonindigenous in the state. Globally the species is G4. The tule elk’s return from near-extinction stands as one of the West’s better-known wildlife restorations.
Full species profile
