Wyoming’s 6,462 elk records form one of the heaviest mammal maps in this atlas, and most of the weight sits in the northwest corner. Yellowstone National Park alone accounts for 4,862 records and Grand Teton National Park for 878, with Teton and Park counties together holding more than 6,000, though records reach across the state from Albany to Sublette.
Built for a migrating animal
Elk here live on one of the great elevation migrations left in North America, summering in high meadows around Yellowstone, the Teton Wilderness, and Shoshone National Forest, then walking down to foothill and valley winter range as snow deepens. That twice-yearly movement strings herds across roads, fences, and river crossings, and it is why elk that seem ever-present in July can be miles away and a thousand feet lower by January.
Calves, then the rut
Records surge from May through September, topping out at 1,406 in July. Late May and June is calving season, when cows stash newborns in the grass and charge anything that wanders close, and September brings the rut, when bulls bugle across the meadows and turn single-minded and dangerous. These are the two seasons when an elk encounter stops being a distant sighting and becomes a genuine hazard.
Status in Wyoming
NatureServe ranks elk S5, Secure, in Wyoming, and the species is native across the state. USGS NAS does not list it as nonindigenous here.
Full species profile
