A four-year-old boy and an eight-year-old girl were attacked and injured by elk four days apart in a Colorado town in the US.
The boy was at a playground near Stanley Park in Estes Park, Colorado, around 1.30pm Monday local timewhen a cow elk “suddenly charged and stomped on him multiple times,” a Colorado Parks and Wildlife news release said Tuesday. Two elk calves were hiding near where the boy was playing, the release said.
While the cow elk was scared off by a family member, the boy was taken to a hospital and later released.
An officer with Colorado Parks and Wildlife came onto the scene and hazed multiple cow elk in the area with “non-lethal bean bag rounds” so they would move away from the park, according to the release.
Kara Van Hoose, a spokesperson for Colorado Parks and Wildlife, told CNN Thursday the elk have left the area and the agency has no further reports on their location.
Stanley Park’s playground has closed indefinitely since the incident and parts of the Lake Estes Loop trail are closed. Signs warning patrons of aggressive cow elk have been posted in the area, the agency said.
Four days earlier, an eight-year-old girl riding her bike in Estes Park around 1pm local time was charged at and stomped on multiple times by a cow elk, Colorado Parks and Wildlife said in a release at the time. She was also taken to a hospital and released the same day.
A Colorado Parks and Wildlife officer later found a cow elk and a calf in the area. The cow elk became aggressive toward the officer who then fired non-lethal bean bag rounds to calm it down.
The calf in question was requested for study by the agency’s health lab, Van Hoose said. She noted the adult cow elk had not been euthanised and the bean bag rounds did not injure the elk.
Neither child had been bothering the elk, according to the agency.
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Van Hoose told CNN the agency doesn’t believe the same cow elk was involved in both attacks.
“Calves are often hidden to protect them from predators, but that means they are hidden to us as well, which is what happened in these cases as the kids were not aware the calves were nearby,” Van Hoose told CNN.
Both attacks prompted Estes Park to post a warning to their Facebook page Monday saying:
“Though they may look harmless, like the bull elk during the rut, cows are extremely dangerous during calving season … The bird sanctuary along the Lake Estes Trail and the Stanley Park area are common places for the elk to give birth, however births can take place in any area,” the town posted.
“For safety, it is important to obey the “trail closed” signs and take a different route. Be watchful in residential neighborhoods, as people have been injured at their homes by walking out the door and unknowingly getting between a cow elk and her calf.”
Colorado Parks and Wildlife warns calving season for elk starts late spring and runs through early summer, so it’s best to leave the animals alone.
“This is something that’s innate to them. That’s just biology. So they (the elk) just react. They can’t think logically through situations. They don’t really have emotions at that point,” Van Hoose told CNN affiliate KCNC-TV.
“This is just a sense of ‘something is threatening my child, I am going to protect them.'”
However, it is common for calves to be found alone as their mothers often leave to find food. The young are not “abandoned” and “the best bet is to leave newborn wildlife where their mother left them until she returns,” the agency cautions.
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