Elk Bugling

Emily and I took an afternoon trip up to Rocky Mountain National Park on
Saturday afternoon to view the pre-mating elk ritual in which the males
"bugle" to attract females, who choose their mates based on (presumably)
some sort of evolutionary impulse to mate with the biggest and strongest
male available.

Prior to mating, the elk all assemble in lower-altitude valleys and the
males strut around (and "toot their horns," as Emily puts it) and call
the women in. They seem to sort themselves into smaller and larger
groups based (presumably) on the desirability of the male, as well as (I
imagine) the probability that a female with have of actually mating with
the chosen male.

As I told Zane today, this sounds like an agent-based modeling project.

But it's also a tremendously fascinating and really beautiful thing to
watch. Elk are really charismatic animals (in a way that many large
deer, like moose, are not) and the bugling is quite visible and, if our
experience is any guide, a really easy thing to find.