This research project was carried out in 1999-2000. Questionnaires were sent to 648 respondents in Canada and the United States. Some 256 (40%) were returned and serve as the basis of these research findings. The total number of elk in the study was 11,085 of which 12.7% were bred cows and 3.9% were bred heifers.

The crude mortality rate for elk in 1999-2000, considered a typical year, was as follows: overall (4.9%), calf (9.8%), yearling (2.9%) and adult (2.6%).

Calf mortality rates were the highest. Death among this group were: due to abortion (0.6%), during calving (2.6%), to 1 month of age (5.1%), one month to weaning (1.5%), at weaning (.03%) and weaning to one year (1.6%). It was felt that the abortion rate was under-reported. Some 12.7% of cows did not calve, and abortion was responsible in 4.9% of the cases.

With calving deaths, in 43.7% of the cases the calf died, and in 9.1% of the cases the cow died. The rate of calving mortality was higher among heifers (8.1%) than cows (4.5%).

The reasons for calf mortality up to one year of age are as follows: no reason known (26%), trauma (17%), scours (13%), no milk (12%), pneumonia (7%), abandoned (5%), bloat (4%), over-mothering (3%), illness (2%), predation (2%) and miscellaneous (9%). Some 20% of the mortality is due to maternal factors. These cows should be culled!

How successful was treatment of sick calves? In 36.4% there were no warning signs before the calf died. In 51.8% of the cases, the sick calves died.

Here are the causes of death among yearling and adult elk: trauma (19%), no diagnosis (16%), dystocia (8%), capture myopathy (5%), kidney failure (4%), pneumonia (4%), enteritis (4%), abdominal ulcer (4%), grain overload (2%), hardware (2%) and miscellaneous (34%) including various diseases. The treatment success was such that 64.6% died with no warning; 42.7% of the sick animals died.

The overall rate of handling injuries was 1.2%. The case fatality rate was 10.2% (died after injury). Among yearling bulls, the rate was 3.0% while with adult bulls it was 1.6%. Clearly risks to younger bulls are higher, but it appears the industry is doing a good job in keeping mortality down due to handling of the animals.

The researchers looked at how mortality rates affected productivity and thus profitability. The study found that of the 4,168 females bred, 3,336 yearlings were produced while 832 yearlings were lost. This represents an 80% productivity rate.

Why were these yearlings lost? Abortion accounted for 1.3%, disease for 11.2%, non-disease mortality for 25% and failure to calve 60.7%. Therefore, the researchers concluded that infectious disease is NOT the major cause of lost income.

The researcher made 3 recommendations as to ways to increase productivity:

1. Increase reproductive performance through nutrition and culling poor cows.

2. Decrease maternal mortalities by aggressively culling poor performing cows.

3. Decrease trauma.

[To me this data shows the elk farming industry is doing an excellent job in keeping mortality rates below 5%; these rates can be reduced even more, and productivity significantly increased, if elk farmers were to cull the elk cows that make poor mothers. This data also needs to be made public to counter the arguments of game farming opponents who claim infectious diseases are rampant in our industry. Ed.]