Wapiti Or Elk (Cervus elaphus)

County List:

Rule:

Mixed Forested/Nonforested Landscapes

Foraging and Cover Habitat Requirements may be distributed across the NEIGHBORHOOD

Foraging Habitat:
      (Any Upland Deciduous (Regen or Sap))
      or (Any Upland Mixed (Regen or Sap))
      or (White Cedar (Regen or Sap))
      or (Any Lowland Mixed (Regen or Sap))
   neighboring:
      Grass
      or Upland Brush
      or Savanna
      or Fields/Pasture

Cover Habitat:
      (Any Upland Deciduous (Sm Saw or Lg Saw or Uneven))
      or (Any Upland Conifer Except Conifer Plantations (Sm Saw or Lg Saw or Uneven))
      or (Any Upland Mixed (Sm Saw or Lg Saw or Uneven))
      or (White Cedar (Pole or Sm Saw or Lg Saw or Uneven))
      or (Any Lowland Mixed (Pole or Sm Saw or Lg Saw or Uneven))

Habitat List:

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Literature:

This species generally avoids dense unbroken forests, preferring open meadows or woodlands interspersed with grassy clearings.

In spring and summer it grazes on tender young grasses and various forbs, such as dandelion, aster, hawkweed, violet, and clover. Mushrooms are relished. With the coming of autumn, an elk becomes more of a browser, taking twigs and bark from white cedar, wintergreen, hemlock, sumac, maple, and basswood. An elk, however, prefers to graze rather than browse, and even during midwinter, it seeks out windswept patches or paws through crusted snow to reach the grass below.

Habitat Preferences: Michigan wapiti thrive in a mosaic pattern of woodlands and open-lands much like their relatives in Montana and other western states. The wapiti's response to the mixture of habitats including clear-cuts is "… a complex function of forage and cover requirements modified by the behavioral patterns of animals in the local environment."

The wapiti range in the northern lower part of the Lower Peninsula has been characterized as including (1) sandy outwash plains (open savanna); (2) outwash plain-morainic ecotones (edge providing herbaceous forage in openings and tree-shrub browsing in adjacent wood cover); (3) steep morainic slopes (slopes with open pine-hardwood mixtures, when cut, providing new sprouts as forage); (4) morainic uplands (well-drained grassy openings interspersed with forest stands with understory); (5) riverbanks and bottomlands (sources of water and edible grasses and shrubs); and (6) coniferous swamps (white cedar-spruce-balsam stands used for foraging and shelter). Area use has been determined by field observations of wapiti activities and by relating the presence of fecal droppings (pellets) to habitat use. As a consequence, Moran, Knight, and other Michigan observers have concluded that wapiti generally frequent swamp conifers, cuttings, aspen-hardwoods, and upland conifer-hardwoods in winter. Stabilized openings and aspen-hardwood cover are major summer environments. It was Knight's contention that openings are of maximum importance with small openings most attractive in winter, large ones in spring and autumn, and openings of all sizes in summer. Heavy winter snows, with depths exceeding 18 inches appear to restrict wapiti movements. According to Moran, agricultural crops grown in Michigan's wapiti range are sometimes invaded. Such areas however, may also constitute barriers to dispersal of the animals.

Associates: In Michigan, the wapiti has a seemingly close association with the white-tailed deer. Moran's classic study shows that wapiti and white-tailed deer (1) occur in similar environment; (2) are closely tied to habitats with openings, shrub cover, and young forest growth (early successional stages) which may be maintained by logging, cutting of pulp wood, and management fires; and (3) are highly adaptable browsers and grazers. In contrast, to the white-tailed deer, however, the wapiti is (1) more of a wilderness animal especially lacking the white-tailed deer's ability to thrive close to human habitation; (2) perhaps only one-half as productive of offspring; and (3) more mobile especially in winter, whereas white-tailed deer are inclined to confine themselves in heavy snowfall to winter yards in extensive coniferous swamps.