Elk account for 62% of nearly 3,000 aggressive wildlife reports in Canadian national parks

The 62 percent is a share of reported conflicts, not a rate per encounter ^[23]. Elk live in numbers in towns such as Banff, and visitors sometimes get too close, which the study's authors think explains some of the aggression ^[8]. So the animal producing the most reports is also the animal that the most people stand nearest to, for the longest. Parks Canada's files record the incidents; the thousands of quiet passes where nothing happened go unrecorded ^[23].

Split by setting, the numbers locate bear awareness. In the quieter areas the study ties to hiking, grizzlies account for 45 percent of encounters and black bears 43 percent ^[7], or 88 percent of that subset between them ^[18]. Elk are 73 percent of conflicts in towns and 57 percent of those during adventure sports such as kayaking and climbing ^[5]. Overall, about a quarter of reported encounters came during low-impact activities such as hiking and 22 percent came in towns ^[4]. The sign that tells a hiker to make noise on a blind corner is aimed at the setting where the two bear species are nearly everything; quiet recreation raises the chance of surprising a bear at close range ^[17].

Shashank Balakrishna, a biologist at the University of York and senior author of the study, offered an explanation for why a herbivore leads the table. "Each species occupies a different ecological role, so they perceive human threat differently. Elk sometimes avoid humans, but at other times use human presence as refuge from predators. This unpredictability may explain why they top the list for aggressive encounters," he said in a press release ^[9].

Five species account for 99 percent of the reports, leaving roughly one percent for everything else in the parks ^[19]. Elk alone outnumber both bear species combined by about 2.3 to one ^[20], which on a base of almost 3,000 reports works out to somewhere near 1,800 elk incidents over the fourteen years ^[21]. A charge that ends in a hospital and a bluff that ends in a retreat are both one line in the file, and the published account of the study reports species shares without injury or severity figures ^[22].

A bull elk can reach 700 pounds and a cow 600 pounds, per the National Park Service, against 200 to 300 pounds for a white-tailed buck ^[13][14]. Elk kick, and they chase when frightened or threatened ^[12], and they do it most during calving and mating season, when cows guard calves and bulls guard herds ^[15]. Both the NPS and Parks Canada put the recommended distance at about 100 feet ^[16].

The study gives managers a targeting rule. "Now we can point to precise high-risk pairings, such as elk visiting townsite areas or mule deer encountered during dog walking," Balakrishna said ^[10]. "This allows park managers to focus resources, signage, and education where they are most needed" ^[11].