From Washington To You
A Roosevelt bull elk grazing in Olympic National Park.
Photograph by Olympic National Park. Public domain.

From Washington to you

Roosevelt Elk

Hoh Rain Forest · Jefferson County · Mount Olympus National Monument 1909

Olympic National Park holds the largest fully wild Roosevelt elk herd in the Pacific Northwest. Bulls can weigh 1,100 pounds.

Olympic National Park is home to the largest fully wild herd of Roosevelt elk in the Pacific Northwest. Named for President Theodore Roosevelt, they are the largest variety of elk in North America. NPS says cows weigh 600–700 pounds (272–317 kg) and bulls weigh up to 1,100 pounds (500 kg).

They use habitats from montane meadows to lowland rain forest. An excellent place to see them is the Hoh Rain Forest, where non-migratory herds stay year-round in groups of around 20 females and calves. Bulls travel singly or in small groups. September is mating season; males bugle and compete for groups of females. They feed mainly on ferns, shrubs, lichens, and meadow grasses.

Hunting in the late 1890s and early 1900s cut the population from a range that once ran from northern California to Vancouver Island. President Cleveland created the Olympic Forest Preserve in 1897. Theodore Roosevelt redesignated part of it as Mount Olympus National Monument in 1909 to preserve elk habitat — the reason the animals are now called Roosevelt elk. Franklin Roosevelt signed Olympic National Park into law in 1938. The source below is the Olympic National Park Roosevelt elk page.

  • Wildlife & Ecology
  • History

Sources (1)

Last reviewed: September 21, 2026

Keep wandering

  • same park

    Hoh Rain Forest

    Pacific storms drop 12 to 14 feet of rain a year on one of the last primeval temperate rain forests in the lower 48.

  • nearby

    Olympic Marmot

    The only marmot that lives nowhere else is a high-meadow squirrel of the Olympic Mountains, and Washington named it the official endemic mammal in 2009.

  • same arc

    Olympic National Park, 1938

    Franklin Roosevelt signed the park into law on June 29, 1938, after a 1937 visit, on ground first reserved in 1897 and later set aside for Roosevelt elk.

Roosevelt Elk · From Washington To You