Elk Don’t Just Happen

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Many times while walking through Rocky Mountain National Park I have heard children ask “Mommy, where do elk come from?” and mommy would reply “Uhmmmm, Just a minute honey.” while she thought up a good explanation. But mommies, while good-intentioned, often have their facts mixed up. Especially city mommies. The ones that think that milk comes from the 7-11. So they reach out there and pull something out of their Mother’s Book of Tricks handbook they all carry with them everywhere.

She will often hesitate to answer for a while thinking that junior or junioress will get sidetracked or because of their short little attention spans will simply forget they asked the question and mommy is off the hook. However there is always that one little precocious child that will say “Mom, mom, mom, mom, mom, mom!” at the top of their shrill little voices until mom has to choose between infanticide and answering and will come up with a plausible, if off the wall answer.

In this case her response was “well honey, elk just don’t happen you know…” as she launched into her tale of where elk come from. She began by telling about how elk were a natural occurrence in the park but occasionally due to accidents, murder, kidnapping, being lured away for better jobs at higher pay by some of the bigger parks, yes, we’re looking at you Yellowstone, or simply falling over dead from a heart attack, they had to be replenished.

This is done by a  process called “New Elk Appearing Out of Thin Air Kind of Magically” and is a secret way the park Rangers have of ordering up new elk to replace the ones that go away. “Remember how Flatus, your goldfish went away while HelloKitty was playing with him? Well it’s kind of like that.” But the Rangers have a way cooler process they use. They have planted special trees throughout the park so that when they need new elk they water the tree with some special water, and soon big pods form on the trees and when they’re ready, the pods fall on the ground and pop open, and guess what comes out? That’s right new elk! As you can see over there by that big green tree they have just hatched six new elk.

I listened in awe as this woman, whom we shall call Mommy, completely pulled this story out of her you know what and told it to the munchkin with a completely straight face. She was incredible and I was completely smitten with her intellect. When I had the chance I told her how I admired her ingenuity she looked at me and said “What, it doesn’t happen that way?” and walked away.

Now I’m not sure if she was kidding or telling the truth so I asked the Ranger about it and he said “Oh Yeah, that’s how we do it. ” then went off to ticket someone who was trying to feed one of the elk a pop tart. I’ve thought about this quite a bit and it all seems a little glib to me so I’m asking any of you Moms out there for your thoughts on this. Was she telling the truth or was this an elaborate mommy thing done to avoid having “the Talk”. Please send any responses to The Director, at The Institute as soon as you can. Thanks

Can’t We All Just Get Along

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While visiting the McCullough Peaks wild horse herd near Cody, Wyoming this summer we had an opportunity to spend several hours with them. As trained observers we immediately were able to learn everything there was to know about them as horses in a non-horse world. There is not one fact pertaining to wild horses that we were not able to observe and interpret so that we might impart this knowledge to you, our interested readers.

For instance, we were able to determine through very close observation that these animals are known as quadrupeds, due to the fact that they have four legs each, one on each corner, which aids in their ability to move around. They have a prominent head which is conveniently placed near the front of their bodies which contain all the necessary features they need to go through life, a mouth, two eyes for binocular vision, ears, etc. This isn’t exactly David Attenborough stuff. This is all pretty obvious, any third year grad student could figure these things out, so we’ll move on to the less obvious things we learned.

One of the most striking facts about them was they have a fairly uncomplicated judicial system. If there is a disagreement they simply bite each other until it’s solved. Consequently events are handled with the minimum amount of litigation and disputes are settled immediately. Their incidence of major crimes are very low. Murder is practically unheard of and if it is, the winner ( the one left standing) was obviously in the right and the rest of herd goes on about its business as usual. They do tend to give that individual his space from then on but that seems only prudent. Carjacking is unheard of. Malicious mischief is primarily a juvenile crime and is treated by a substantial nip from the closest adult to the perpetrator. Social services are provided by the herd in general. It takes a herd to raise a child. And divorce is handled simply by one stallion biting the bejezus out of the other and taking his old lady. This is a term used by the herd and does not indicate any sexism on the part of the observer or the rest of the horses.

However it obviously worked and worked well. While we were there they had any numbers of disputes and one divorce but the entire system held up and justice was served. There was also a noticeable absence of litigators in the herd. The one we did see was completely covered in bite marks and had a part of its ear missing, so it looks like the herd believes that one should keep its snout out of other horses business. This is an unprofitable occupation to be in when you have a system that handles its own problems.

There were other important observations made such as their ability to navigate without a GPS. Another was how they were able to distinguish one individual from another when all the white ones looked alike. To be fair and unbiased all the brown ones and grey ones looked alike too. A biggie for our observers was how they overcame the language barrier and were able to communicate without being able to speak English. A simple whinny produced the most amazing results.

There was a never-ending flurry of horse facts that filled notebook after notebook until it was time to leave. We feel that we have increased the knowledge about mustangs and wild horses in particular, to the point where we can answer any question you may have about horses, their attitudes and general belief structures, and how they make a living. If you have any questions please send them along with a self-addressed, stamped envelope and we’ll try to get them answered for you. Easy ones will get an immediate response while hard ones may take a month or two.