If you're walking along and you see a pair of velvet antlers out in a forest, they may belong to an elk. They get the velvet on their antlers in the summer. Elk shed their antlers every year. Elk can weigh as much as 1,000 pounds. Mature bulls can stand five feet.
Cows are one fourth smaller.
There are 175,000 elk in the Colorado mountains today. Elk live in forested areas, mountain meadows, foothills and canyons. Elk range from the eastern foothills to the western border of Colorado. Elk eat grass, shoots, twigs, leaves, flowers and fruit. The elk's predators are mainly wolves, pumas, human hunters, grizzly bears and black bears.