Have you ever been in a rut and taken it out on others? These elk in Yellowstone National Park know exactly how you feel.
It’s not exactly the same “rut” that we humans can find ourselves in from time to time. For deer and elk, a season of rut refers to a period of time during the year (usually between October and November) where male deer are more active.
This is because they are trying to establish dominance, mainly for mating purposes. It’s during this time that female deer are “in heat,” so to make a long explanation short, there’s a lot of tension during the rut season.
We see that tension play out in the video below, which shows bull elk at the Mammoth Hot Springs portion of Yellowstone National Park being overtly aggressive towards park goers. And with the footage being from 2012, I categorized it as “vintage,” so I apologize if I offended anyone or made someone feel old.
The video showcases classic rut behavior for male deer. One in particular is bugling loudly as it walks around the female cows in the area.
This is all a part of the establishing dominance portion of the season. I don’t have to give you a whole lesson on elk behavior, since I’m assuming you can put two and two together, and you can likely gather that the bull elk is showing off a bit to the females.
There’s no doubt that is what he’s doing when he lowers his antlers and sprints right towards a red pick-up truck that had stopped on the side of the road to view the wildlife.
Armed with hindsight, the driver of the truck could have avoided a trip to the bodyshop if they just would have kept on driving. Instead, the elk, at the very least, put a dent and some scratched in the back rear part of the vehicle.
That process repeats itself over and over again in the footage, and it’s almost like clockwork. Someone driving by on the road stops, the bull elk sees the vehicle as a threat, and reacts by lowering its antlers and running right at them.
You might think it would get repetitive watching it play out so many times, but in reality, it just gets better every time it happens. Check it out:
