elk specie found along the coast of washington
Elk Elk are more than twice as heavy as mule deer and have a more reddish hue to their hair coloring, as well as large, buff-colored rump patches and smaller tails. Moose are larger and darker than elk; bulls have distinctively different antlers. Elk gather in herds, while moose are solitary. Elk cows average 225 to 241 kg (496 to 531 lb), stand 1.3 m (4.3 ft) at the shoulder, and are 2.1 m (6.9 ft) from nose to tail. Bulls are some 40% larger than cows at maturity, weighing an average of 320 to 331 kg (705 to 730 lb), standing 1.5 m (4.9 ft) at the shoulder and averaging 2.45 m (8.0 ft) in length.[23][24] The largest of the subspecies is the Roosevelt elk (C. c. roosevelti), found west of the Cascade Range in the U.S. states of California, Oregon and Washington, and in the Canadian province of British Columbia. Roosevelt elk have been reintroduced into Alaska, where the largest males are estimated to weigh up to 600 kg (1,300 lb).[25] More typically, male Roosevelt elk weigh around 300 to 544 kg (661 to 1,199 lb), while females weigh 260 to 285 kg (573 to 628 lb).[26][27] The smallest-bodied subspecies is the tule elk (C. c. nannodes), which weighs from 170 to 250 kg (370 to 550 lb) in both sexes.[26]
Moose After expanding for most of the 20th century, the moose population of North America has been in steep decline since the 1990s. Populations expanded greatly with improved habitat and protection, but for unknown reasons, the moose population is declining rapidly.[13] In North America, the moose range includes almost all of Canada (excluding the arctic and Vancouver Island), most of Alaska, northern New England and upstate New York, the upper Rocky Mountains, northern Minnesota, Michigan's Upper Peninsula, and Isle Royale in Lake Superior. This massive range, containing diverse habitats, contains four of the six North American subspecies. In the West, moose populations extend well north into Canada (British Columbia and Alberta), and more isolated groups have been verified as far south as the mountains of Utah and Colorado and as far west as the Lake Wenatchee area of the Washington Cascades.[14][15] The range includes Wyoming, Montana, Idaho, and smaller areas of Washington and Oregon.[16] Moose have extended their range southwards in the western Rocky Mountains, with initial sightings in Yellowstone National Park in 1868, and then to the northern slope of the Uinta Mountains in Utah in the first half of the twentieth century.[17] This is the southernmost naturally established moose population in the United States.[17] In 1978, a few breeding pairs were reintroduced in western Colorado, and the state's moose population is now more than 1,000.