Although elk are mostly seen in mountainous and forested terrain they do in fact live in a wide variety of habitats; from coastal forest, up into alpine meadows and onto snow covered mountain ridges. They are powerful animals capable of moving vast distances (necessary to seek out the large quantities of food a male needs to grow his antlers), at high speed (needed to escape their main predators such as grizzly bears, mountain lions and wolves).

During the rutting season males strut around with heads held high, herding females into harems. The current elk population in North America is approximately 1 million. This is about 10 percent of the probable population before European settlers arrived.