Despite the mild-mannered impression cow elk give to the majority of their natural peers, they have the ability to get scrappy on occasion. We see a perfect example of just how edgy these animals can be in some footage from Cow Bull Outdoors. Despite typically being herbivorous animals, rare instances see them looking for a snack with a little more protein. The cow elk in this video makes her move toward a baby goose, which she's able to actually catch and kill after first fending off its protective parents.
Then in a sequence of head-scratching events, we see the animal partially eat the fallen bird. It's not every day we see the natural world throw us a curveball that looks like this.
Watch the video below:
Cow Elk Eats Baby Goose
The first five minutes of the 15-minute video show the cow attempting and failing to catch some starlings. Every time she gets close to one of the small birds, they quickly fly away. She actually looks frustrated and moves around the pond, trying to figure out her next move.
Her attention is captivated by a family of Canada geese nearby, and she starts making her way towards them. The adult geese start leading their baby goslings away. Then one of the adults tries to confront and fight the elk while the other continues to lead the goslings away. Unfortunately for the bird family, the elk snags one of the goslings and starts to eat it while the rest make it back to the water.
The description of the video claims that this is the first footage of its kind ever captured, and though other videos of things like deer eating birds have been shared online in the past several years, this is the first elk and goose incident we're aware of.
Do Elk and Deer Eat Meat?
Getty: Richard Carson
Interestingly enough, they do. But ungulates have been reported to eat plenty of unusual things, and some of it winds up getting captured on video. Cow elk and deer have historically been known to have carnivorous tendencies, eating eggs and smaller animals such as rabbits, frogs, squirrels, birds, and sometimes even fish for nutritional needs.
However, in one instance, deer have even been seen eating human remains. Back in 2017, a trail camera in San Marcos, Texas, a town about 45 minutes from the state capital, caught a deer feeding on human remains that were there for a decomposition study. Texas State University's Forensic Anthropology Research Facility shared a photo of a deer holding what seemed to be a human rib bone dangling from its mouth.
Pretty gruesome, right? The next time a deer or elk crosses your path, you might look at them a little differently.
