Out and about before Dawn....rolled over to Merced Wildlife Refuge, greeted the Crane Counters--kinda wish I could have tagged along!--and set up on the Entrance Platform, and listened, the calls a marvel..... sighted Hawks in the Still Dark, and heard Great Horned Owls over in the Cottonwoods and Willows, which was prime reason for being early!....reports and pics and clips of a longlong day for sometime!...pics up are from very end of the rideabouts....with daylight fading, and not much luck locating Roads, found the Tule Elk Reserve, which is within the San Luis Wildlife Refuge, and report for sometime!....cloudy hazy damp cool cold all day, and rainyrainy tonight from Mariposa to the Valley--slow rolling!.....glad to be snug in the Cabin!...
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Records of elk within the Yosemite section are fragmentary. Edward Bosqui in his Memoirs (1904, p. 66) tells of meeting with a herd of elk on Dry Creek, north of the present town of Snelling, in the winter of 1850-1851. He was camped on the then dry bed of the watercourse in a grove of big cottonwoods.
At daylight the next morning I was suddenly awakened by the heavy tramp and noise of large animals, and on looking through the fog which prevailed I could see indistinctly, not thirty yards away, giant-like figures of elk passing, so to speak, in procession before me. They were tossing their great antlers about and sniffing excitedly. Suddenly, with one accord and with an impulse that shook the ground like an earthquake, they swept out of sight. It was a procession of phantoms such as one might conceive in a nightmare, and left an impression on my youthful mind never to be forgotten.
Regarding the worth of the exhibit, there could not be any question. "Next to the Buffalo," Palmer maintained, "the Elk is of more interest to the general public than any other kind of native big game." The California elk in particular was a stirring example of American conservation. "These and other facts, particularly the part taken by the California Academy of Sciences in securing the reestablishment of the species, should be brought to the attention of visitors by appropriate labels on the enclosure, by notices on the Yosemite publications, and otherwise." Indeed, it was "highly appropriate that the exhibit should be made in Yosemite Valley where it will be seen by visitors from all parts of the world." In this fashion the enclosure might also serve as "an object lesson illustrating the great work which the National Park Service is doing for the conservation of Wild Life." In short, Palmer hoped McAllister's "generous offer" would be approved. [34]
It was, in retrospect, too much good publicity for the Park Service to pass it up. By 1921 the herd—originally numbering twelve animals—had been established in Cook's Meadow. All told, the paddock enclosed twenty-eight acres. Although Grinnell obviously was disappointed, he remained diplomatic, objecting only to the result and not to the spirit of the enterprise. As the decade drew to a close the Park Service itself began having second thoughts. "A difficult administrative situation is developing in Yosemite," reported Ansel F. Hall, chief naturalist, in 1928, "on account of the comparatively large area set aside several years ago as an elk paddock." And even that was too small. Simply, no one had foreseen the herd's abundant growth rate, now averaging 25 percent annually, which presented "a continually growing problem in the matter of the necessary care." [35]
http://www.nps.gov/history/history/online_books/rusticarch/chap9.htm
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(dont know why the underlining came across!--whole piece is a good read!)
The Valley Tule Elk were moved to Owens Valley in the Thirties, and their descendants are the Elk I've seen from the Road driving on 395 near Mammoth, and there is another herd at Point Reyes National Seashore--on my sometime list...
Song: (link is to SongFacts' page, one of my favorite sites!!...has clip...search on youTube will bring up music video too...and curious as to who made the video (music videos are often 'works' in themselves), I found info at wiki, here:
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