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.

Spike Elk, Rio7

Pronghorn have a thicker darker base and stem.

Looks like a spike elk to me.
Interesting that the bones aren't more scattered.

Yup.

Thanks guys. That's what I figured.

Agree about the bones. There are mountain lions out there. I assume that may be the culprit, but I'm not sure.

Hard to tell from the picture but, looking the lower jaw bone and nose of the skull, i would rule out Lion,Lions almost always eat the nose off a elk first, can't remember seeing a lion kill that had a nose left. Rio7

Spike elk. I'd go with a wounded animal that didn't make it through the winter. Either illegally shot/wounded in the fall hunt, wounded in rutting games, or just tripped on some steps getting into Air Force One. A mountain lion would have dragged the pieces in different places. Looks like it's been ravaged by coyotes.

There's two nice knife handles laying there!

Makes sense. Thanks.

Thanks for the good laugh.

Good idea. I'll let my boys (14 & 17) decide. They said they wanted it on one of their walls, but they also are into knife making.

Spike elk!

Check the skull to see if the ivories are still there.

They are.

Nope - it's a rare Double Unicorn. Only found in Colorado.

Dude, you be grillin' indoors? People do that in Chicago...in a place called the projects.

Yeah, I'm pretty ghetto.

It's the stove in my fancy remote "Chalet" on my property.

With all five screened windows and the door open, it's a non-issue. Also, I rarely turn a gas grill above 200 deg. Low and slow for me. So, it doesn't put out any significant smoke.

The liquor selection and ammo collection makes up for everything. You must be a little farther west than I am. The mountains are closer to you, than at my place.

Thanks. The Pendleton 20-year is pretty sweet. I've added a few bottles since that pic, including a Woodford Double-Barrel and some 15-yr Whistle Pig my brother got me. The Capt' Morgan's is my hunting partner's. I'm not into that, except in the most-extreme emergency. The ammo: that's turkey loads and 9mm. Also got a lot of .375 Wby; 10mm; 40 S&W; etc. ... I keep a segment of my arsenal at my uncle's in the Denver metro so that I can fly out and hunt/shoot without lugging the weapons sometimes.

My fiancé enjoyed her first ever trip to the Rockies last week.

Just sent you a PM. Are you still on Colorado?

Reply sent.

Is that Cumbres and Toltec tracks down in the valley?
Grill, ammo, wine and spirits, If ya had some explosives you would have had a full complement!

NICE view from up there.

If you are talking last pic, no it is not train tracks. he is just west of Denver in that pic....... You may have heard of Red Rocks amphitheater?

Cool camp house. 😊

Break a femur, humerus or other bigger bone open and look at the marrow. If it is pure white, almost a chalky white then it was a winter kill or maybe killed by a predator after being significantly weakened by the winter. if there's any red or pinkish to it, that is a sign it was "healthy" when it died, so either a lion, a bullet, a car or something like that likely killed it.
It can be tough to tell, depending on how old it is and the conditions it laid out in during the winter. Winter killed critters generally have zero color to the bone marrow IME. This was an elk mandible, skull and backbone/ribs that I found spring bear hunting last year. It has a faint amount of pink to the marrow. The skull had the antlers sawed off and so was the spine, with all leg bones nowhere to be found so it was obviously a hunter killed elk and I suspect just from the previous fall.

Bovine

'Hawk, loving the new addition to your family !

Correct. Sorry, I've been absent.

Thanks.

Yep. They go in and eat the liver, then cover the prey with a layer of leaves in case they return to feed.

Cool pics

yep

Brad knows his Colorado Unicorns.

Jordan is impressive…..as usual.

Another 243 lost animal?

Capn Morgans is good for cleansing wounds.

6.5 manbun wound im guessin.
Flat biller miscounted clicks

I think it's a chupacabra. Looks pretty devilsh to me.

This