Urban Elk

[Lil Foot]

37 miles south of my place in the high country is the little town of Pine, AZ.
I stopped at the local grocery and when I left, this big boy was eating grass in the front yard of the home diagonally opposite the grocery. I shot the pics from the shoulder of Hwy 87, a very busy highway - broad daylight, cars & people everywhere. Apparently he has been hanging around in town for about a month.

 

[SidecarFlip]

Nice. Elk tend to be fearless creatures.

Here in Michigan we have them in the north central part of the State and they are protected by law. You can only hunt them with a special (and hard to get permit) and poaching them gets you serious jail time.

Elk are native to the Eastern states but were driven out west by the influx of people destroying their natural habitat up here (urbanization). Like deer, they have adapted. Unlike deer, the meat tastes better.

 

[Bmyers]

They have a strange looking guard dog.

 

[gssixgun]

More and more we are seeing all sorts of animals in Suburbia

We have a few moose up here that hang out in the town, many people don't understand just how dangerous a Mama Moose can be

My Sis has had a Bear in her back yard for over a week in the center of Loveland CO.

Heads out at night raids the neighborhood and crawls back under or up her tree in the morning.

The best part was when DOW left it up the tree on Halloween Night even with all the kids walking through the neighborhood..

We expect it at our place but we are Rural