BBC getting it wrong

[Foxyboy43]

Read and marvel…
it's confusing because Europeans call North American moose "elk". Key differences are Moose (*Alces alces): huge, dark, flat antlers, big snout, aquatic; Elk (*Cervus canadensis): medium/large, lighter, branched antlers, grassland/forest edge, white rump patch.


Moose (Alces alces)

• Size: Largest deer, up to 7 feet tall at shoulder, much heavier than elk.
• Antlers: Broad, palmate (flattened, open shape).
• Color: Dark brown with grayish legs.
• Face: Long, bulbous snout with a dewlap (flap of skin) under the chin.
• Habitat: Prefer wetlands, lakes, and forests; eat aquatic plants.

Elk (Cervus canadensis, also called Wapiti)

• Size: Large but smaller and slimmer than moose.
• Antlers: Thin, branch-like, pointed.
• Color: Light brown to reddish-tan with a characteristic white rump patch and dark mane.
• Face: Longer, narrower face than a moose.
• Habitat: Found in forests and meadows, grazers of grasses and leaves.

Key Confusion Point

• In Europe, the animal North Americans call a moose (Alces alces) is referred to as an "elk". The North American "elk" (Cervus canadensis) is related to the European red deer.

Soooo - when is a moose not a moose? When it’s an elk - simples (I think)…

 

[farrieral]

Tim, For a Ripping Yarn..........................

Try the Elephant buried under the Talbot in Tregaron

Not linked to the moose/elk or elk/moose debate...

But to the oddities found in OR indeed under Welsh pubs...there was/is a North Wales pub who had a pet lion!

The Lion, Gwytherin....

 

[VSS]

Read and marvel…
it's confusing because Europeans call North American moose "elk". Key differences are Moose (*Alces alces): huge, dark, flat antlers, big snout, aquatic; Elk (*Cervus canadensis): medium/large, lighter, branched antlers, grassland/forest edge, white rump patch.


Moose (Alces alces)

• Size: Largest deer, up to 7 feet tall at shoulder, much heavier than elk.
• Antlers: Broad, palmate (flattened, open shape).
• Color: Dark brown with grayish legs.
• Face: Long, bulbous snout with a dewlap (flap of skin) under the chin.
• Habitat: Prefer wetlands, lakes, and forests; eat aquatic plants.

Elk (Cervus canadensis, also called Wapiti)

• Size: Large but smaller and slimmer than moose.
• Antlers: Thin, branch-like, pointed.
• Color: Light brown to reddish-tan with a characteristic white rump patch and dark mane.
• Face: Longer, narrower face than a moose.
• Habitat: Found in forests and meadows, grazers of grasses and leaves.

Key Confusion Point

• In Europe, the animal North Americans call a moose (Alces alces) is referred to as an "elk". The North American "elk" (Cervus canadensis) is related to the European red deer.

Soooo - when is a moose not a moose? When it’s an elk - simples (I think)…

I think you’ll find that the confusion can all be blamed on the early American settlers who, for some obscure reason of their own, decided to rename the wapati with a name they were already familiar with, despite it looking nothing like the European elk that they already knew so well.
Why they couldn't have just carried on calling it the wapiti, and saved us all a lot of bother, I don't know.

 

[weblyish]

Read and marvel…
it's confusing because Europeans call North American moose "elk". Key differences are Moose (*Alces alces): huge, dark, flat antlers, big snout, aquatic; Elk (*Cervus canadensis): medium/large, lighter, branched antlers, grassland/forest edge, white rump patch.


Moose (Alces alces)

• Size: Largest deer, up to 7 feet tall at shoulder, much heavier than elk.
• Antlers: Broad, palmate (flattened, open shape).
• Color: Dark brown with grayish legs.
• Face: Long, bulbous snout with a dewlap (flap of skin) under the chin.
• Habitat: Prefer wetlands, lakes, and forests; eat aquatic plants.

Elk (Cervus canadensis, also called Wapiti)

• Size: Large but smaller and slimmer than moose.
• Antlers: Thin, branch-like, pointed.
• Color: Light brown to reddish-tan with a characteristic white rump patch and dark mane.
• Face: Longer, narrower face than a moose.
• Habitat: Found in forests and meadows, grazers of grasses and leaves.

Key Confusion Point

• In Europe, the animal North Americans call a moose (Alces alces) is referred to as an "elk". The North American "elk" (Cervus canadensis) is related to the European red deer.

Soooo - when is a moose not a moose? When it’s an elk - simples (I think)…

TQ for this
Not really related to anything useful but I note the N American one is Cervus species same as red/sika

Should the sexes get called Stag & Doe then?

Fairly sure male Canadian moose are called Buck but have never been formally introduced to one

 

[VSS]

TQ for this
Not really related to anything useful but I note the N American one is Cervus species same as red/sika

Should the sexes get called Stag & Doe then?

Fairly sure male Canadian moose are called Buck but have never been formally introduced to one

I think they just caĺl them bulls and cows over there, whether referring to wapiti or moose/elk.

 

[Mungo]

TQ for this
Not really related to anything useful but I note the N American one is Cervus species same as red/sika

Should the sexes get called Stag & Doe then?

Fairly sure male Canadian moose are called Buck but have never been formally introduced to one

For a long time, wapiti/elk were regarded as just a subspecies of C. elephas (red deer).

They were eventually ‘promoted’ to a full species, but can freely interbreed with both sika and red.

They whistle more like sika, which is particularly odd coming from something so big!

 

[alberta boy]

I think they just caĺl them bulls and cows over there, whether referring to wapiti or moose/elk.

^ This

 

[alberta boy]

For a long time, wapiti/elk were regarded as just a subspecies of C. elephas (red deer).

They were eventually ‘promoted’ to a full species, but can freely interbreed with both sika and red.

They whistle more like sika, which is particularly odd coming from something so big!

The big Bulls scream , it's astonishingly loud and can be heard miles away . It also raises your heart rate lol .
AB

 

[Mungo]

The big Bulls scream , it's astonishingly loud and can be heard miles away . It also raises your heart rate lol .
AB

Yes! Only heard it once, but it was astonishing.

Like a sika on steroids. Which, I suppose, is more or less exactly what it is!

I have a colleague who did experiments playing back recordings of wapiti/elk bulls, sika stags, and Scottish red deer stags to red deer hinds. The hinds were most interested in the elk calls…

 

[alberta boy]

Yes! Only heard it once, but it was astonishing.

Like a sika on steroids. Which, I suppose, is more or less exactly what it is!

I have a colleague who did experiments playing back recordings of wapiti/elk bulls, sika stags, and Scottish red deer stags to red deer hinds. The hinds were most interested in the elk calls…

That's strange , you'd think they'd be attracted to the Red Stag calls . On a side note , Cow Wapiti will respond aggressively to predator calls when they have calves with them , ask me how I know lol . Mind you , bears will come to a predator call as well , situational awareness is critical out here .
AB

 

[Mr. Gain]

I think you’ll find that the confusion can all be blamed on the early American settlers who, for some obscure reason of their own, decided to rename the wapati with a name they were already familiar with, despite it looking nothing like the European elk that they already knew so well.
Why they couldn't have just carried on calling it the wapiti, and saved us all a lot of bother, I don't know.

The Brits and French did not know the "elk" well. Alice's alces was extinct in our latitudes, leaving the relic term "elk" to loosely mean "biggest deer".
The wapiti fit this description in its home range, so the settlers who encountered it reassigned the relic word "elk" to the new (to them) species. Presumably, they lacked sufficient positive contact with local people to learn or adopt the name "wapiti".
Of course, once they ventured north and encountered Alces alces itself, they needed another word. This time, however, it seems as though they were on speaking terms with their neighbours, as they adopted the Algonquin word for the species, which they transcribed as "moose". Thereafter, "moose" was imported into the UK as the common name for Alces alces, and "elk" adhered only to Megaloceros giganteus, the giant "Irish elk" of the Pleistocene, which was actually a very big deer, and not an extra-large moose, as those who named it first believed.
Or so I was once told...

 

[Mungo]

That's strange , you'd think they'd be attracted to the Red Stag calls
AB

The more I learn about the Red/sika/elk species complex, the stranger it gets.

 

[Ouhout]

And the Dutch for moose is eland, which is why the huge cow like ungulates in Africa are called eland.

Just thought I’d throw that in…

I didnt know that! Interesting

 

[Foxyboy43]

And then there is this critter; any guesses?

 

[Mungo]

I didnt know that! Interesting

My wife is (European) Dutch. When we first got together, she saw the scars on my leg and asked what caused them.

She flat out refused to believe me when I told her I was attacked by an eland.

It took us a while to figure out that I meant the spiral horned beasts of the Kalahari and not swamp donkeys.

 

[Mungo]

And then there is this critter; any guesses?

View attachment 454567

Irish elk.

Which were just stupidly large fallow deer.

 

[Foxyboy43]

Irish elk.

Which were just stupidly large fallow deer.

Smarty pants!
Fancy dragging one back to the Jimny?

This Giant Irish Deer is believed to have roamed the lowlands of central and eastern Ireland. Adult pre-rut stags weighed over 1 tonne, whereas the hinds weighed about a half a tonne. The stags and hinds display similar levels of sexual dimorphism (differences between adult males and females in terms of overall body size) as their direct living relative, the fallow deer. Both stags and hinds stood at 1.8 metres at the shoulder and the stags only bore antlers with a width of up to 4 metres, (combined weight up to 45kg) are the largest antlers know to have existed on any old world deer species. They were palm like antlers, similar to those of a Fallow deer, it’s nearest living direct descendant.​

 

[BenBhoy]

Native British deer could face same fate as red squirrel Native British deer could face same fate as red squirrel

Telegraph making mistakes now

 

[Mungo]

Native British deer could face same fate as red squirrel Native British deer could face same fate as red squirrel

Telegraph making mistakes now

Covered in detail here:

Thread 'Red deer threat !'

Jan 11, 2026

Just seen this…

• kenbro
• Replies: 14
• Forum: Off Topic

• 

 

[KRW]

Slightly off topic .... but just to highlight the abundant ignorance of it all.

I got into conversation with a middle aged Female Vegan over the festive break who wanted to know why "We"(us folks with guns) do what we do, and what is the reasoning behind it... in such situations I usually and politely go down the "fresh food on the table route" regards game shooting and food that has never seen polystyrene or clingfilm unlike battery farmed chicken etc. and also down the American Grey squirrel route in an attempt to educate regarding conservation of our native Reds, I explained that the introduced non native grey species carries a pox that wipes out reds and quoted numbers of song birds that they can decimate in a breeding season if left unchecked, but after doing so it was suggested that perhaps if we interbred them both in captivity and then released them back out into the woods then things would be OK ........ my mind was boggled at that stage and I decided to save my breath, I might just add that of the two people involved in the conversation, one of us is retired, hence a little ver middle age, and the other works in the education system........