We’d know when we heard Joe without actually seeing Joe.” “One of my graduate students named bulls after her ex-boyfriends. “Bugles are unique so you can recognize males based on their bugles,” Clarke says. Bugles are alerts, but each bull has its own way of delivering that alert. The bull is making sure the forest knows he’s coming and his intentions are serious.

The sound raises concern and raises the hair on the back of your neck. There’s nothing friendly about a scream mixed with high-pitched whistles and low-belly grunts. Photo © Scott Suriano/TNC Photo Contest 2019 The Sound “There’s not one single study that has confirmed what purpose bugling serves and that’s the focus of my research.” A bull elk struts in front of a harem of females in an effort to impress. “Bugling elk is a major attraction, but to be honest, none of us know what we’re listening to,” Clarke says. Clarke is researching wild elk in Pennsylvania this fall. You can find elk herds in Kentucky, West Virginia and Wisconsin. They are now not only found in abundant populations in the West, but have also been reintroduced to many eastern and midwestern states. In the 19 th century, the elk’s range was reduced to a few places in the Western United States. Rocky Mountain National Park in Colorado is another popular place to catch the fall spectacle, but you don’t need a national park for this spectacle. Tourists visit Yellowstone through October to watch 700-pound animals with bulging racks make a bugling ruckus. Yellowstone National Park is known for its aggressively big screamers during the rut, elk mating season. They scream for two reasons: fights and females. Females worry about calves, other females and maybe the route.”Īdult male elk, bulls, are much easier to decipher. “They’re talking about so many different things. Clarke, professor of wildlife biology and behavior at Unity College. “We started to work on cow calls and we had to put them in the too hard pile,” says Jennifer A. Cows make all kinds of calls, but officially knowing what they mean is difficult. I bet she’s calling for her calf to move away from us just like I’m barking at my son to move away from the sun. Just as I bark at my son to do the same, I hear another bark, more like a kazoo without the rattle of wax paper under pressure. When we reach timber, I drop my bike in the dirt and drop on a log in the shade. My youngest son is whining about the heat a few pedals behind me.

Female elk call