Wapiti (Cervus canadensis) – Methods of Pursuit

The Wapiti (Cervus canadensis) is the lordliest of all true deer. Among all the beasts of the chase, there is none more stately or more imposing, and none that yields a fine trophy to the hunter. It is essentially a gigantic Scotch stag, or, rather, the stag and the wapiti are the extreme forms of several red deer races, which succeed one another in tolerably regular gradation as we pass from west to east through temperate portions of Europe, Asia, and North America.

Habitat: The white hunters throughout its range invariably called the wapiti “elk.”. The name was given by the settlers, first encountered it near the Atlantic coast a few centuries ago.

Historically, no game animal in North America, except the common or white-tailed deer, was so widely distributed as the wapiti. This is because its habitat was generally the same as bison habitat but extended further west and east. It abounded throughout the Alleghany ranges in the eighteenth century. It was very plentiful between them and the Mississippi during the Revolutionary War. Like other large game, however, it vanished quickly before the arrival of the rifle-bearing settler.

By the beginning of the present century, it had become practically extinct in most regions east of the Mississippi, except in some spots just south of the Great Lakes and in a small stretch of the Pennsylvania mountains, where the last individuals lingered until after the Civil War. During the first half of the century, Wapiti abounded on the vast plains. All the early explorers witnessed the abundance of the massive herds, though they were not found in such incredible myriads as bison.

The conspicuous animals often run down like excellent horses; they are killed off much sooner than a deer or an antelope. Like the bison, they were practically exterminated from the plains early in the eighties, except in isolated tracts here and there. They are now limited to the wooded mountains of the Rockies and the Cascades, where they are still abundant. Indeed, there are parts of western Wyoming, Montana, Colorado, and Washington where they are almost as plentiful as ever.

Characteristics—the wapiti is highly polygamous, and during the rut, the master bulls gather vast harems about them and do fierce battles with one another. The weaker bulls are driven off by themselves. At this time, the bulls are comparatively easy to approach because they are very noisy and constantly challenge one another by night and day. Settlers and hunters usually describe their challenge as ‘‘whistling,” but this is a very inadequate description. The challenge consists of several notes, first rising and then falling.

Heard nearby, especially in unattractive surroundings, it is not particularly impressive, varying in tone from a squeal to a roar and ending with grunts. However, when it is close, it is one of the most musical sounds in nature, sounding like some beautiful wind instrument. Nothing makes hunters leap and thrill like the challenge of a wapiti bull, as it comes pealing down under the great archways of the mountain pines through the still, frosty fall weather, all the more if it be at night, under the full moon, and if there is light snow on the ground.

Methods of Pursuit—Doubtless, the most exciting way to follow the wapiti was on horseback in the old days. Then the mounted hunter pursued him either with dogs or without, and in the latter case trusted to get alongside and kill him with a revolver shot. The great size of the quarry was such that only the largest and most powerful dogs could in any way interfere with its flight. Nowadays, Wapiti must be generally killed while still hunting, and the rifle has of necessity supplanted the horse and hound.

To me, hunting for the Wapiti has always been very appealing. It cannot be said to be as difficult as the chase of the big horn. It is free from the almost intolerable fatigue attendant upon clambering over mountain tops after the white goat. However, there is plenty of exercise if one hunts faithfully. Usually, the scenery is very grand, for the wapiti are found scattered through the glade-broken forests that clothe the rolling mountainsides, and they have a habit of occasionally standing and even lying on bare, jutting look-out points on the edges of cliffs, from which one can see, as far as the eye can reach, nothing but vast stretches of lake-dotted, wooded wilderness.

After killing a wapiti bull early in the morning or with plenty of daylight ahead, so we didn’t have to rush to camp, I sat down by the dressed carcass and gazed across the deep valleys for hours. The wild and savage beauty was unmarred by the least trace of man. Then, with the tongue at my belt, I would start off to camp, timing myself to get there just as dusk came on and the blaze of the pitchy pine stumps shot upward through the darkness.

In the old days, I killed wapiti near my ranch on the Little Missouri. Even when I first visited there in the early eighties, wapiti had become scarce, while black-tail deer still swarmed. I do not think I ever got a wapiti in one day’s hunt from the ranch house. We always traveled with a wagon to some likely spot and began the hunt early the following morning. At the ranch house, we hunted exclusively for fresh meat in our rifles, and on these occasions, I usually hunted for the table. I never encountered a Wapiti head of any size on the LL. Missouri. My chief hunting for wapiti was done in north-western Wyoming and western Montana, and there I found many splendid trophies

The largest head I ever killed had antlers fifty-six inches in length, and this is well above the typical size of antlers; however, in the most exceptional cases, they grow eight or ten inches and even a foot longer. Nothing can compare to the splendid and massive symmetry of such a head. On a trip to the mountains after elk, it is usual to travel with a pack train, for the country is too rough for wagons and yet not so utterly impracticable as to forbid horses, which is often the case in the haunts of sheep, goats, and caribou.

With a pack train, many comforts can be carried along, such as tents, an ample supply of bedding, and small luxuries for the table. In consequence, it is far more pleasant, especially on a long trip, to have a pack train, for although any competent hunter will always rough it as much as necessary to get the game, it is still a pleasant thing to be comfortable when the chance offers. In fine weather, a man can lie out in the open with impunity, which is why I prefer it to sleeping in a tent. However, in the rain, a man who has to lie out in the open will have a dismal time.

In the plains country, long-continued rains are rare, and, with a stout tarpaulin in which to wrap the bedding, a man can afford to disregard the chances of bad weather, but sometimes in the mountains it will rain every day for a considerable time, and then the discomfort of coming back to camp at night to pass a wretched hour standing up in a downpour or couching under a leaking brush lean-to, with the certainty of damp blankets for the night, takes away a good deal of the fun of hunting.

On the other hand, with a comfortable tent, a lot of the fun of the hunting trip is after nightfall. To come back from a long all-day’s walk, thoroughly tired yet not so done up as to be unable to appreciate rest and a hot supper, to sit around the blazing pine logs after the meal of elk venison, grouse, trout, and flap-jacks, and to turn into one’s warm sleeping bag as the ice begins to skim the water in the buckets, makes makeup, in the aggregate, as much real comfort as often comes to any man.

From the point where one meets the pack train, it is now usually several days’ journey into rich elk country. This is for skin- and meat hunters who butcher all game, whose haunts are accessible by railroads. Once on the hunting grounds, it is easy to determine what elk hunting opportunities exist. If they are numerous, their trails will be seen everywhere, making well-beaten paths through the forests, while the edges of the streams and marshy hollows will be trodden up by great round footprints, like those of two-year-old cattle.

If it is during the rut, bulls will challenge one another. Later in the season, when there is snow on the ground, the trails are more distinct than ever. In a fairly wild country, there is less need for wapiti than deer for being outside early in the day.

Although fond of siestas, they feed irregularly throughout the day, and during the rut, the bulls are rarely still for long periods, either at night or by day. In wild weather, the herds are particularly active, although they are more difficult to reach, seeming to be more on the alert than when the weather is still and warm. In hunting wapiti, glass can be useful, but not nearly as much as in sheep or goats.

This is because there is too much forest. If it is rutting time, the bull is usually identified by the sound of his challenge. Otherwise, his tracks must be diligently searched for, or else the hunter simply works his way cautiously through and across likely places until he comes upon some sign of his quarry. It is always necessary to go across or upwind, with the wapiti’s nose being very sharp. However, his eyesight is not particularly good—hardly as good as that of a deer, and not even close to that of a prong buck or mountain sheep.

In very wild places, wapiti bulls, especially during the rut, are so bold and confident that it is easy to stalk and kill them; but where they have been heavily hunted, they become as wary as deer, and it is only their superior size and the greater eagerness with which hunters follow them that place them at a disadvantage in the struggle for life when compared with their smaller kinsfolk. Compared to its bulk, the wapiti is much more easily seen. The hunter will follow it under circumstances where he would abandon the chase of a deer. This is because the trophy is so much more valuable.

Moreover, the wapiti live on the ground, which favors hunters who are still alive. The moose and the white-tail deer dwell in forests so dense that approaching them is very difficult, for it is almost impossible for any white man not to make some noise slipping through the bushes and over the dead sticks and dried leaves. Sheep and goats are protected by the lofty cliffs where they delight. But the wapiti, like the black-tailed deer, is not a beast of the high crags, nor, by preference, of the dense woods.

The ground on which he delights is a broken hill country, where groves and glades alternate. The blacktail loves open hillsides riven by gorges clad in ash and cedar. In consequence, the wapiti and black-tail can be readily seen at quite a distance, whereas the moose and white-tail live in cover where it is hard to catch a glimpse of anything thirty yards off; moreover, when once seen, the wapiti and dark-tail can generally be stalked without much difficulty, for there is always cover on rough hillsides and among patches of scattered timber.

Under similar conditions, however, I do not think that there is very much difference in wariness and keenness of sense among these four different beasts. Undoubtedly, the moose and the whitetail are a little cleverer, and the whitetail is especially one of the most cunning of all; but those wapiti and blacktail, which haunt the deep woods, are nearly as hard to get at as their two slier relatives; at any rate, the difference is not great enough to warrant the hunter taking liberties. Of course, in places where hunters have not yet penetrated—and there are very few such in out-of-the-way mountain regions nowadays—four beasts are absurdly tame, but they never show the stupid self-confidence of the white goat.

Though the Wapiti is so large and powerful, it is not a very tough beast. It succumbs to a bullet as readily as a deer or an antelope. In shooting it, I usually carry a 45°75 or 45°90 Winchester. However, the new small-caliber smokeless powder cartridges, using a bullet with a naked lead nose, will probably become more common among hunters.

Unlike almost any other wild game, wapiti flesh is more delicious to me, though it must be eaten hot to avoid tallow formation when it cools. The wapiti is easily domesticated, at least in terms of being hardy and breeding well when kept in parks. However, as soon as the bulls lose the dread of man when wild, they become very dangerous in the rutting season. There are several aberrant forms of wapiti, including one that dwells in the extensive Tule swamps of California.

There is also an entirely distinct species, with its center of abundance in the Olympic Mountains of Washington and Vancouver Island. This species, which Dr. Hart Merriam has recently done the present writer the honor of naming after him (Cervus Roosevelt), is larger than the common form, with the head in winter black instead of dark brown; and the antlers have a straight beam, ending in a cluster of erect points instead of the long terminal prong with backward sweep, so characteristic of the ordinary form.

Besides reaching west to the Rocky Mountains, the ordinary wapiti extends to the north as well. There then comes an immense space where no wapiti are found at all. This is until the Pacific coast ranges are reached and the recently described species appear. According to Lewis and Clark, these wapiti of the Pacific coast were known. They have been confounded by the ordinary form, distinct as the Columbian black-tail deer from the common black-tail or mule deer of the Rockies and the broad plains.

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