My History-The 2006 Mount St. Helens Elk Die-off

This is a blog post from April 11th, 2006 as I discovered dead elk in the Toutle River Canyon in the Mount St. Helens National Volcanic Monument. Wildlife managers discovered this week that there was a large mortality rate among the elk this winter.
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My efforts over the last few weeks were put to a bit of a litmus test yesterday. I am aware of two large winter-killed bulls just lying next to the rivers within the monument. If they still had their horns, we will have had some success avoiding the total lawless invasion that it feels like the monument has endured this past few weeks. Prepared to photo document horns cut cleanly with a hacksaw, I hiked out into the backcountry.



What I found was that both bulls still had their adornments. A little respect left them even in their demise.