Rocky Mountain elk looking over cliff, Grand Canyon National Park, 2015.

Rocky Mountain elk (Cervus canadensis nelsoni) are the largest ungulates found in the park. Elk found in Grand Canyon National Park today are descendents of 303 individuals reintroduced to the state from 1913-1928 from the nearby Yellowstone National Park population. Grand Canyon's elk live in the ponderosa pine and pinyon-juniper forests of the park. Elk are not native to Arizona, so probably not surprisingly, are not well-adapted to the dry climate. As such, these elk are often dependent upon human sources of water and can be seen drinking from puddles under bottle-filling stations or grazing on watered vegetation around homes and buildings.