SALON

Thursday, Oct 18, 2012 6:38 PM UTC

Weird news: Elk relocated after having sex with cow in public

A Canadian rancher had to order the relocation of the animal after spectator attention

By

Topics: ranch, cow, elk, mating, Weird news of the day, Weird news, Canada,

Weird news: Elk relocated after having sex with cow in public (Credit: Tom Reichner)

The Star reports that a bull elk, a massive creature that rancher Greg Messner estimates to weigh about half a ton, has been relocated from 100 Mile Ranch in Canada’s western province of British Columbia because it became a dangerous distraction. Messner explains that elk are rare in the area — a passersby dubbed it “The Elk.” “It’s kind of like the Queen,” Messner said. “There’s only one of them.”

The Elk had apparently taken a fancy to Messner’s herd of cows, a romance that evolved gradually over the past three years. He told the Star, “He stuck around for a couple of days the first year,” said Messner. “Then last year, he was just hanging around again for a couple of weeks and not really doing anything, just hanging around and looking at the cows. This year, he decided to go for it.” The Star writes:

This year, the beast decided to stay a while and ended up mingling in the herd for about two months during its rutting season.

One of Messner’s cows was also in heat and the pair became a freakish but constant spectacle.

“If you were there watching, it would be an X-rated movie. Several times a day,” Messner said through a chuckle.

“He was pretty aggressive. He’d put his head down with his great big antlers and poke the little calves and push them away and send them for a little ride once in a while and flick them around.”

Aggressive inter-species sex isn’t what prompted Messner to get rid of The Elk, however (Messner estimates that even though the elk “had a huge rack,” the likelihood of the cow becoming pregnant was low due to an incompatible chromosome count). The spectators were the problem. Messner noticed that cars would stop to watch the pair during intercourse near the highway, creating “a real dangerous situation.” Eventually, according to Messner, hunters even showed up, hoping to poach the elk.

That’s when the rancher called in a conservation officer who sedated the elk and took it 20 kilometers out of town. But it sounds like Messner believes in true love — or at least lasting attraction. “I kind of think he will be back next year,” he said.

 

Continue Reading Close

Prachi Gupta is an Assistant News Editor for Salon, focusing on pop culture. Follow her on Twitter at @prachigu or email her at pgupta@salon.com. More Prachi Gupta.

Next Article

Related Stories

Featured Slide Shows

What To Read Awards: Top 10 Books of 2012 slide show

close X
  • Share on Twitter
  • Share on Facebook
  • Thumbnails
  • Fullscreen
  • 1 of 10
  • 10. "The Guardians" by Sarah Manguso: "Though Sarah Manguso’s 'The Guardians' is specifically about losing a dear friend to suicide, she pries open her intelligent heart to describe our strange, sad modern lives. I think about the small resonating moments of Manguso’s narrative every day." -- M. Rebekah Otto, The Rumpus

  • 9. "Beautiful Ruins" by Jess Walter: "'Beautiful Ruins' leads my list because it's set on the coast of Italy in 1962 and Richard Burton makes an entirely convincing cameo appearance. What more could you want?" -- Maureen Corrigan, NPR's "Fresh Air"

  • 8. "Arcadia" by Lauren Groff: "'Arcadia' captures our painful nostalgia for an idyllic past we never really had." -- Ron Charles, Washington Post

  • 7. "Gone Girl" by Gillian Flynn: "When a young wife disappears on the morning of her fifth wedding anniversary, her husband becomes the automatic suspect in this compulsively readable thriller, which is as rich with sardonic humor and social satire as it is unexpected plot twists." -- Marjorie Kehe, Christian Science Monitor

  • 6. "How Should a Person Be" by Sheila Heti: "There was a reason this book was so talked about, and it’s because Heti has tapped into something great." -- Jason Diamond, Vol. 1 Brooklyn

  • 4. TIE "NW" by Zadie Smith and "Far From the Tree" by Andrew Solomon: "Zadie Smith’s 'NW' is going to enter the canon for the sheer audacity of the book’s project." -- Roxane Gay, New York Times "'Far From the Tree' by Andrew Solomon is, to my mind, a life-changing book, one that's capable of overturning long-standing ideas of identity, family and love." -- Laura Miller, Salon

  • 3. "Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk" by Ben Fountain: "'Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk' says a lot about where we are today," says Marjorie Kehe of the Christian Science Monitor. "Pretty much the whole point of that novel," adds Time's Lev Grossman.

  • 2. "Bring Up the Bodies" by Hilary Mantel: "Even more accomplished than the preceding novel in this sequence, 'Wolf Hall,' Mantel's new installment in the fictionalized life of Thomas Cromwell -- master secretary and chief fixer to Henry VIII -- is a high-wire act, a feat of novelistic derring-do." -- Laura Miller, Salon

  • 1. "Behind the Beautiful Forevers" by Katherine Boo: "Like the most remarkable literary nonfiction, it reads with the bite of a novel and opens up a corner of the world that most of us know absolutely nothing about. It stuck with me all year." -- Eric Banks, president of the National Book Critics Circle

  • Recent Slide Shows

  • Share on Twitter
  • Share on Facebook
  • Thumbnails
  • Fullscreen
  • 1 of 10

Related Videos

More Related Stories

Comments

 3 Comments

Comment Preview

Your name will appear as username ( profile | log out )

You may use these HTML tags and attributes: <a href=""> <b> <em> <strong> <i> <blockquote>

follow salon

Most Read

From Around the Web

Recommendations