Seeing a lot of older female elk? That’s because they’re ‘bulletproof’

Researchers at the University of Alberta tracked elk using radio collars in a multi-year study. What they found: older female elk–the ones that have survived the previous hunting season–learn to avoid hunters. “Elk learn to become shy as they get older,” said conservation biologist Mark Boyce, who led the study. If they make it to the age of ten, he said, they’ve learned enough to become “almost bulletproof, virtually invulnerable to hunting. That’s because they get better at avoiding hunters.”