Colorado Hunters are Surprised When They Get Sniffed by Cow Elk

It's not unusual for hunters to return from trips with far out stories, but I bet few will top what just happened to some Colorado hunters. They were just sniffed by a cow elk.

I'm no expert hunter, but I'm pretty sure this isn't how it works. I'll defer to the hunter's own description of what went down in the Colorado wilderness a few days ago:

While hunting our first morning, we were working a bench at around 10,200 feet when Zachary spotted a few cow elk with a bull about 100 feet below. Before we knew it one of the cow elk was right on top of us, which made for an awesome experience.

Fortunately, one of them had a phone handy to capture video otherwise most of the rest of us wouldn't have believed them.

I wanted to share this special hunting moment for several reasons. First, these hunters show the textbook way you respond to a situation like this. They froze and did not attempt to pet the animal. Shockingly, this happens more than you think and pretty much dooms the young elk as most wild animals will reject another that has human contact.

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Second, this is probably a result of the rut which is about to hit its stride in the wild. Yellowstone Park mentions that rutting season can begin as early as August and hits the peak in September.

Well done, hunters. You passed the elk cow sniffing test.