Colorado Wildlife Park spotted an elk with a tire stuck to its neck and appealed to the public for help reporting the animal if it was seen.
Daily Mail reported, on August 10, Colorado Wildlife Park in the US shared footage captured from a camera mounted in the forest, showing an elk roaming in the Arapahoe-Roosevelt National Forest. with a rubber, tire stuck on his neck. Rangers say the moose has been spotted by them on surveillance cameras several times over the past 12 months.
The poor elk is believed to be still quite young, so experts say, as it gets older, it could have trouble breathing and eating if the tire stays around its neck without it being worn was taken.
The moose was discovered with a tire hanging from its neck for a year.
Colorado Wildlife Park spokesman Jason Clay said: “The worst-case scenario would be that he would die in a fight with another moose.” Mistakes are a provocative sign to other wild animals.
Sadly, elk entanglement with foreign objects around their horns and necks is not uncommon in Colorado due to the indiscriminate littering of visitors into the natural environment. “We see this all too often, it could be a hammock, Christmas lights, ropes, tires…,” said spokesman Jason Clay.
Colorado Parks has issued an appeal to the public to contact them if the animal is found.
Bull elk in Colorado freed from tire that has been around his neck for two years
A bull elk in Colorado has been freed from a tire that has been around his neck for an estimated two years.
Colorado Parks and Wildlife officials said in a news release that they were able to tranquilize the elk and remove the tire on Saturday after cutting off its antlers.
Wildlife officers Dawson Swanson and Scott Murdoch removed the tire after locating the elk on private property near Pine Junction, Colo. The bull was spotted by a local resident.
Elk with tire around its neck freed after two years in Colorado
By Ben Hooper
Wildlife officers said the bull is about 4 and half years old, weighed more than 600 pounds and had five points on each of its antler beams.
”It was tight removing it,” Murdoch said. “It was not easy for sure, we had to move it just right to get it off because we weren’t able to cut the steel in the bead of the tire. Fortunately, the bull’s neck still had a little room to move.
We would have preferred to cut the tire and leave the antlers for his rutting activity, but the situation was dynamic and we had to just get the tire off in any way possible.”
Officers said the bull was back on his feet within minutes of being given a reversal of the sedative.
”The tire was full of wet pine needles and dirt,” Murdoch said. “So the pine needles, dirt and other debris basically filled the entire bottom half of the tire. There was probably 10 pounds of debris in the tire.”
Officials said the elk has been seen the past few years then would disappear for “long periods of time.” Wildlife officials said they first became aware of him in July 2019.
“While conducting a population survey for Rocky Mountain bighorn sheep and mountain goats in the Mount Evans Wilderness, wildlife officer Jared Lamb saw the bull through a spotting scope.” Trail cameras also picked up the elk multiple times.
