Some-where east of this Cariboo community wanders an enormous bull elk, stripped of its crown of six-point antlers and a misplaced attraction for one of Greg Messner's cows.
The elk, a loner that had been turning up at the century-old 100 Mile Ranch to check out Messner's herd for three years, was relocated earlier this month for its own safety and for the probity of the cow.
"He stuck around for a couple of days the first year," said Messner, whose wife has had the ranch in her family for its entire history. "Then last year, he was just hanging around again for a couple of weeks and not really doing anything ... looking at the cows. This year, he decided to go for it."
Messner said the elk's visits have been a curiosity. Elk are so rare in the area that Messner and anyone else who stopped by to have a look at the impressive creature in the pasture simply call it The Elk.
This year, the beast ended up mingling in the herd for about two months during 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.
Messner estimated the elk at about six feet tall and four feet wide and weighing about half a tonne.
He said he finally called a biologist at the University of Northern British Columbia after inquiries from neighbours about whether his cow could have been impregnated by the elk.
"He had a huge rack, but he was too well-endowed by chromosomes," Messner said, adding he was told an elk has eight more chromosomes than a cow, making the likelihood of a hybrid calf a near impossibility.
But it wasn't the amorous nature of the elk that finally prompted Mess-ner to break up what he called "the harem" in his pasture.
Messner said the final straw was when hunters turned up, the lure of a six-point rack potentially dangerously enticing. "Trucks were pulling over and people were watching this poor elk through the scope of their gun and ... doing U-turns on the highway. It was becoming a real dangerous situation."
