Denver — Lightning is blamed for killing 56 elk in the Mount Evans Wilderness during the second week of August.
The elk were above timberline on a ridge at 12,200 feet, four miles south of the Mount Evans summit, when the bolt struck.
"We've found big game animals before that were killed by lightning," said Janet George, wildlife biologist for the Colorado Division of Wildlife. "But it's quite rare to find so many animals killed in one incident."
Forty-eight of the elk were grouped together within a 60-foot circumference, five other elk were located 75 feet away and three others were located about 130 feet away from the main group.
"While this is certainly a tragedy for these animals, the elk population in the Mount Evans area and across the state is in excellent shape," George said. "From a management perspective, this loss has negligible ramifications for the local or the statewide herd."
Colorado is home to approximately 216,000 elk, with the Mount Evans herd estimated to contain more than 2,400 animals.
Past incidents of big game animals being killed by lightning have occurred in Colorado and elsewhere. In 1997, six bighorn sheep were killed in Colorado's Kenosha Mountains; in 1986, 12 elk were killed by lightning along the Continental Divide just north of the Eisenhower Tunnel; and outside of Colorado 53 caribou were electrocuted by lightning in Central Alaska in 1972.
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