The Aspen Times
A helicopter brings a pregnant elk into the landing zone for testing on Owl Creek Ranch in Snowmass on Friday, March 5. Colorado Parks and Wildlife officials are planning to capture about 40 pregnant cows in the area and put vaginal implants and collars on the elk to monitor the herd population and recruitment.
Photo by Kelsey Brunner / The Aspen Times
ASPEN Elk have been roaming the Roaring Fork Valley for centuries, and the gang that makes its way around Sky Mountain Park has given visitors a taste of mountain life and locals a reason to pause when they go by on their morning or evening commute.
A helicopter brings a pregnant elk into the landing zone for testing on Owl Creek Ranch in Snowmass on Friday, March 5, 2021. Colorado Parks and Wildlife officials are planning to capture approximately 40 pregnant cows in the area and put vaginal implants and collars on the elk to monitor the herd population and recruitment. (Kelsey Brunner/The Aspen Times)
Elk have been roaming the Roaring Fork Valley for centuries, and the gang that makes its way around Sky Mountain Park has given visitors a taste of mountain life and locals a reason to pause when they go by on their morning or evening commute.
A helicopter brings a pregnant elk into the landing zone for testing on Owl Creek Ranch in Snowmass on Friday, March 5, 2021. Colorado Parks and Wildlife officials are planning to capture approximately 40 pregnant cows in the area and put vaginal implants and collars on the elk to monitor the herd population and recruitment. (Kelsey Brunner/The Aspen Times)
Elk have been roaming the Roaring Fork Valley for centuries, and the gang that makes its way around Sky Mountain Park has given visitors a taste of mountain life and locals a reason to pause when they go by on their morning or evening commute.
If elk could talk, four of them near Aspen would have quite the story to tell their herdmates about what they experienced Friday morning.
There, each one of them was, minding its own business, when in swooped this noisy, airborne contraption, from which a net was shot its way. Before the elk knew it, it was being hobbled, blindfolded, and wrapped in a sling, to be hauled off dangling beneath a helicopter to a location where humans awaited to sedate it and give it what amounted to a quick physical in the field.
The elk was then released, still a bit dazed and confused by its experience, and began making it way back to its herd, with three of the four wearing newly placed collars on their necks.