On October 7, a local wildlife photographer alerted staff at Saskatchewan’s Prince Albert National Park of a male elk whose antlers had become tangled in a net.
The photographer had spotted the elk on Kingsmere Road near Hanging Hearts Lake Marina with a web of netting covering its face. The park’s wildlife conservation staff tracked the elk down and immobilized it with a tranquilizer. The elk was asleep for about 40 minutes, during which time staff cut away the netting and then used a reversal drug to wake the elk back up.
“We observed him and watched him walk off,” says Tom Perry, the park’s resource conservation manager. “Whenever we do an immobilization like that, we put an ear tag in the animal just to note that the animal has been handled before and that it had an immobilization drug in it. But yeah, I saw him just the other day, and he looks happy and healthy.”
A week and a half later, on October 18, a second male elk was spotted with snow fencing tangled around its antlers, dragging three to four metres of the material behind it. The elk was first seen in the evening, but park staff couldn’t locate it until the next day. By that point, the elk had disentangled itself, leaving the snow fencing lying on the ground.
Wild Profile: Meet the North American elk
While these types of entanglements don’t happen often, Perry says they can be more common between August and October, elk mating season. “During the mating season, the bulls are more likely to assert their dominance and try to notify other elk around that there’s a dominant bull by rubbing their antlers on trees or the ground or any kind of nearby object, and so it can lead to these entanglement issues,” says Perry.
He adds that becoming entangled in human hazards can stress the animals out or injure them, leading to possible death.
What tends to exacerbate the issue is that the elk roam through the nearby town of Waskesiu Lake where people own cabins. To avoid future entanglements, park staff are asking visitors and cabin owners to avoid leaving hazards out, such as hammocks, swing sets, sports nets, lawn chairs, garden netting, and clothes lines. Perry says that any potential hazards left out should be at least three metres off the ground, or secured firmly to the ground with no gaps, loose bits, or ropes hanging off.
How to make your garden more wildlife friendly in winter
This is even more pertinent with Christmas coming up. Decorations such as Christmas lights or fake snow can entangle anything from elk to birds. The same goes for snow fencing, as was proven by the park’s second elk. Instead, Perry recommends using natural leaf piles to prevent snow build-up and drifting.
“I think it’s important for people to think about the wildlife that we share the space with,” says Perry. “Sometimes these things take a little bit of extra work to do, especially if you’re a cabin owner, but that’s kind of what makes these places special—sharing the space with wildlife.”
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