On Saturday night, Patrick Hemstreet was at his home office in Pine, Colo., when his wife called him from upstairs, asking him to look out the front window. Among the pine trees and aspen, Mr. Hemstreet saw a herd of about 40 elk, including a large bull with a rake of horns on its head.
“He was there,” said Mr. Hemstreet. “Our friend who has a tire around his neck.”
He immediately knew the person to call.
For more than two years, residents of Pine, a small town about 30 miles southwest of Denver, have been sending reports to Colorado Parks and Wildlife officials whenever they saw an elk that had somehow He shook his head through the tire.
The tire slipped down the neck of the elk and got stuck there, just as its horns developed and popped out. Wildlife officials wanted to remove the tire, and sought the public’s help in locating the elk.
Mr Hemstreet, who moved to Pine about a year ago, was among those who informed wildlife officials about the elk when it appeared in footage from his trail camera, or when he saw it in his 10-year-old. Saw on Acre’s property, which was met with a herd. Grazing or fighting other bulls during the rote season.
But this time, with the elk being so close, was different, Mr Hemstreet said in an interview on Tuesday.
Mr Hemstreet sent a text message to Dawson Swanson, a wildlife officer who lives nearby. The two talked about the elk so often that Mr Hemstreet didn’t need to explain what he was messaging.
“Now in my front yard,” he wrote. “Easy shot.”
Mr. Swanson replied seven minutes later, “On my way.”
Colorado Parks and Wildlife, which is part of the state Department of Natural Resources, said in a statement On Monday that Mr Swanson pacified the elk, who is four and a half years old and weighs 600 pounds. He and another wildlife officer then chopped off the horns of the elk so that the tire could be pulled over its head.
This is the fourth time in a week that wildlife officials have tried to pacify the bull, the department said. The process can be challenging because tranquilizer devices only work over short distances, Swanson said.
Wildlife officials had been looking for the elk since July 2019, when an official spotted it as he was conducting a population survey of wild sheep and mountain goats in Mount Evans Wilderness, a national forest area.
Colorado Parks and Wildlife said its officials have often seen animals trapped in hammocks, clothes lines, chicken feeders, laundry baskets, volleyball nets “and yes, tires,” among other items of human civilization.
Scott Murdoch, the wildlife officer who helped remove the tire from the elk’s neck, said in an interview, “We’ve probably seen six to 10 bull elk and reindeer pacifiers in everything from basketball hoops to trash every year.” “It is very common that we will chop off the horns.”
How the elk got its head through the tire remained a mystery. The tire may have been part of a feeder of some sort, Colorado Parks & Wildlife said in its statement, although Mr Murdoch said it could have been used as a tire swing.
After seeing the elk with tires for the first time, it spent the next two years wandering between the park and Jefferson counties, disappearing for long periods, especially in winter, wildlife officials said.
In May and June, four attempts were made to capture the bull in the conifer, about eight miles north of Pine. Wildlife officials said sightings near Pine occurred in September and early October, as the bulls became more active during the rut season.
“They just hang around, eat and mate,” said Mr Hemstreet. “He’s always out there. He’s big.”
Mr Hemstreet said the elk had come near his home at least nine times before making the final call on Saturday. He said the first time it strayed into range of his trail camera about a year ago.
“I couldn’t believe what I saw, so of course I posted it on social media, and I started Googling and found that they had been looking for it for years,” he said. A neighbor gave him Mr. Swanson’s cellphone number.
After receiving Mr Hemstreet’s text on Saturday, Mr Swanson went to a neighbor’s yard to drive away the herd, which had already begun to wander. He took a shot with the tranquilizer, and the herd climbed the trees.
He and Mr. Hemstreet followed. It was getting darker. With the flashlight, they plunged into the dense and steep sloping forest. It took 45 minutes to track down the elk, and several more attempts to pacify it. (Elk metabolize tranquilizers rapidly during the rooting season, Mr. Swanson said.)
Another wildlife officer Mr. Murdoch arrived to help. But one saw blade broke, and its battery died, as officers tried to cut the steel on the side of the tire, the type used on small cars or trailers. Mr. Swanson and Mr. Murdoch, who were carrying a fresh saw blade and battery, decided that the only way to remove the tire was to use a saw to cut off the horns of the elk.
More than two hours had passed before the tranquilizer dart hit the elk. The tire, full of debris and dirt, was finally wrestled to its head, and it began to come off after it was given a dose of reversal. It stood, said Mr. Murdoch, unsteadily at first, and wandered into the darkness.
Since those days, Mr. Hemstreet said he has begun looking to the hills in search of elk.
“was keeping my eyes out,” he said. “We want to make sure he does well.”