Ahh, the mighty ritual of rutting elk.
Every year from mid-September to mid-October, testosterone filled bull elk begin looking around for a mate. The problem is dominant bulls will take a lot of females into their harem, sometimes up to 30 at one time according to Purdue University.
This leaves other bulls with two options: Roam the plains hoping to run into some females that aren’t spoken for or challenge a dominant bull for his harem.
But even if you choose to look around for some new females, there’s a good chance you’ll run into another bull with the same idea, which naturally leads to a fight.
One of these fights was caught on camera and I have to say it was a pretty skewed battle from the jump. For starters, one of the bulls had the high ground and got a downhill running start when the two decided to lock antlers.
As if that wasn’t enough, his opponent only had one antler, which he valiantly tried to use to stand his ground, but it was no use.
The full racked bull hit with a punch, buckling the hindlegs of his opponent and sending him to the pavement. He then followed up and sent the loser rolling over and scrambling to try and get back to his feet. As soon as he did, he took off running, chalking this one up as a lesson learned.
If there’s one thing we know about nature is it’s unfair, but this video really exemplifies it.
