Apparently, female elk learn this as they age, staying away from the roads and sticking to forests during this period.Ī happy-looking elk sticking to the forest. At the height of the rifle season, hunters tend to slow down on the roads so that they have a better chance of spotting the elk. The researchers suspect that instead of knowing what season it was at any specific point of the year, the elk were instead taking their cues from how the hunters behaved. Rifle hunters, in contrast, can shoot over distances of up to 300 meters, and so during rifle season the animals would avoid the roads and stay in more remote and inaccessible areas. Since bow hunting requires hunters to get much closer to the animals in order to stalk their prey, during bow season older females would stick to rugged terrain more. In riskier places, such as near roads, they tended to stay in safer grounds – rugged terrain and forest – where the likelihood of being spotted by hunters was lower.Įven more amazingly, the elk seemed to be able to differentiate between bow and rifle hunters, and alter their behavior accordingly. In addition, older female elk adapted their behavior and habitat preference according to how risky the region they were moving through was.
![female elk female elk](https://live.staticflickr.com/5639/20784618496_4fb5e085b6_b.jpg)
![female elk female elk](https://www.studyfinds.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/elk-1186208_1920.jpg)
![female elk female elk](https://live.staticflickr.com/5797/20984953524_74c18a203a_b.jpg)
The team found that the more т¡мe passed, the more the animals were able to realize that by moving less, they could have a better chance of avoiding being spotted by hunters.