ELK RUBS

If you're used to seeing whitetail rubs, get ready to see some bull elk and red deer stag rubs! Our lovely niece, Christina Kruszeski, kindly agreed to model for me to show the scale of the trees and their rubs.
	A whitetail would never tackle a tree of this diameter.   It's width wouldn't fit the scale of their antlers. The height is also much greater than a whitetail's--their's would be a height roughly between the two arrows, but again, NEVER on a tree this big. You might be able to see the dried resin that had run from the tree's wound.
These first three trees have been rubbed deeply, but their bark is still undamaged on the other side--maybe their large diameter saved them. The kiss of death is if it's ringed all the way around--that's "girdling" a tree. The paths that move nourishment, just under the bark, are destroyed, so everything above the damage starves--in a pine, that means the whole tree dies. The rolled edges of the damage show signs of healing.  Most likely it was last year's rub that was rerubbed this year.
	This tree is girdled.  The top is still green, but it's already dead. Look at the top of the rub and how it abruptly stops.  That tells for sure that the tree wasn't bent over as it was rubbed, but was rubbed only upright.
This rub is a typical height for these amazing, huge deer. The top edge of damage is tapered. The tree could have been upright or bent when rubbed.
	This tree was certainly bent over to be rubbed to this height of more than seven feet. These monsters might bash and smash branches at this height until they're frayed, broken and stripped, but even they don't rub an upright tree to this height. You see the same bark-stripping along a whole tree with whitetail, but it's on a very slender sapling.
Same situation, but these trees are a little more stout.  I don't think they were bent, but it's anybody's guess. Thank you for your help Christina!

ELK STAMPEDE

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