They can weigh 1,000 pounds and stand nearly 6 feet tall. Their enormous antlers look like the mother of all hat racks.
And - unbeknownst to many who live here - a few of them have quietly taken up residence in Southern Arizona.
Elk.
"It appears that a small number of elk have moved south into the Pinaleño Mountains" southwest of Safford, said Duane Aubuchon, field supervisor for the Arizona Game and Fish Department.
"It's tough to estimate, but I'd say there are probably 15 to 20 elk in the range," Aubuchon said. "They're seen occasionally, and we see signs of them up there."
HOW THEY GOT HERE
Elk are common in Arizona locales such as the White Mountains and mountains near Flagstaff. It's unknown why a few of the big beasts have moved into Southern Arizona in recent years.
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"Historically, elk probably weren't south of the Mogollon Rim" of Central Arizona, Aubuchon said. "But the elk population in Arizona started increasing in the 1980s, and more and more of them were seen on the San Carlos Apache Reservation" southeast of Globe.
By the mid-1990s, a few of those elk moved south out of the Gila Mountains into the Gila River corridor, Aubuchon said.
"Some apparently moved south into the Pinaleños from there," he said. "Those mountains have good high-elevation habitat with spruce and fir forests and open meadows."
The range, rising to an elevation of about 10,700 feet, "has some things in common with the White Mountains and the San Francisco Peaks near Flagstaff," Aubuchon noted. Elk sightings in the Pinaleños are "pretty sporadic. But last summer, someone got a photo of two cow elk in a meadow at about 9,000 feet."
KEEPING ELK IN CHECK
Will populations be allowed to increase in the Pinaleño Mountains - and perhaps even expand to other ranges in Southern Arizona?
"The plan would be to keep the elk population at relatively low numbers and prevent it from expanding into historically unoccupied habitat," Aubuchon said.
Did you know?
Bull elk signal the breeding season with a loud, piercing, high-pitched call known as bugling.
Contact reporter Doug Kreutz at dkreutz@azstarnet.com or at 573-4192.
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