While the sign seen in the video below warns drivers to be on the look out for pedestrians, I’m thinking the road department might want to explore adding an elk crossing sign somewhere along the roadway too.
This footage is out of the Estes Park, Colorado and Rocky Mountain National Park area. The social media account that posted it, called Good Bull Guided, is based out of that area, and often shares interesting videos of wildlife (including elk, bear, bison and more) living their lives in Colorado.
In case you didn’t know, the Estes Park area is famous for having huge populations of elk. It’s estimated that over 280,000 elk live in Colorado, which is enough to give the state the honor of housing the largest concentrated population of elk in the world. Believe it or not, that many elk bring in tourists from all over the planet, particularly to the Estes Park area.
The mountain town acts as a base for the Rocky Mountain National Park, and often times, elk will ditch their natural habitats and traverse and move around the city limits. Herds occasionally take over Estes Park, and the humans that call the town home, or are visiting the area, are often witnesses to great numbers of the antlered creatures roaming freely.
That’s on full display in this video below. An elk herd can be seen basically shutting down a roadway and sidewalk. As I stated earlier, there’s signage that’s meant to alert drivers to potential pedestrians using the upcoming crosswalk. There’s nothing within the frame of the camera that warns of the presence of elk… but I guess the road crossing signs can double as such.
And I have to point out how hilarious it is that a majority of the elk in the herd are utilizing the cross walk that leads up into a rocky hillside. Granted, not all of the wild animals waited to cross the road at that point (some can be seen just lazily wandering on the two lane road). But a good chunk of them appear to have waited to cross the roadway until they approached the cross walk.
Can’t really be mad about an elk traffic jam if they are crossing where they are supposed to.
As crazy as it might look, it’s not out of the norm for wild animals to use paths that are already carved out by humans. After all, those paths are often the most efficient routes, and require little to no path clearing. That’s why these elk are using the roadway to walk around, and just so happen to be taking the cross walk to what appears to be some sort of trail up the hill.
All in all, it’s an interesting video that shows just how massive elk herds in the wild can be, and how much space one single herd can cover. Hopefully the neighborhood doesn’t mind all of the “guests” that stopped by and pretty much took over the area and the roadway… but that’s something you sometimes have to deal with out in elk country.
Check it out:
