Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Elk Hunting What Is This Dead Animal?

Last week out of my property in central Colorado, my girl:



... found this in the forest just below that meadow:



Is it an elk? I assume so, but I'm not entirely certain. So, I was seeking input. Someone told me he thought it was a lope, but I don't think so. For perspective, the antlers are about 2 feet long. I don't know when it died, but it was recent enough that one of the upper and lower leg bones were still connected by the tendon.

My neighbor saw over 150 elk on the front meadow on my property, further below that meadow, back in January when I wasn't there, and there are literally thousands of elk rubs on Aspens in another area just next to that meadow. There are several acres of Aspens where literally every tree has an elk rub on it. I've seen a lot of elk rubs on my property before, but never that many.