Banff National Park’s elk population has ranged from more than 1,000 to the low hundreds.

Visitors are unlikely to think much of their role beyond acting as muses for quintessential Rocky Mountain photos.

But what some see as the unofficial mascot of Banff is also a critical part of balancing its delicate ecosystem as its population shrinks and rises.

Mark Hebblewhite, a conservation biology professor at the University of Montana who’s studied elk in depth, said they’re wild animals meant to live outside urban areas.

“We are not helping the system by these abundant urban elk populations,” said. “It isn’t helping their ecology. It’s not helping disease. It’s not helping our ecology.”

Elk in Banff’s ecosystem

As elk population ebbs and flows, so too do impacts on other wildlife and vegetation.

When elk surged to nearly 700 in the late-1990s near the Banff townsite, moose and beaver populations declined since both compete for the same willow forage.

If elk population is too high, it can mean more food for predators like wolves, cougars and black bears. Without a high enough population, predators may decline because of less food.

With fewer elk, the federal agency anticipated healthier populations due to less competition for food, but also vegetation like buffaloberries, Douglas fir, balsam poplar and snowberry was likely to rebound.

Peter Duck, president of Bow Valley Naturalists, said it’s important to prioritize natural processes for a “healthy predator-prey relationship” but also to see how the ecosystem responds to elk and vice versa.

Parks Canada’s Banff field unit declined multiple attempts by CBC News to interview a wildlife expert. A statement said there was “no new information or notable change that would warrant an interview.” It said if the field unit determined future information to be in “public interest, we would be happy to provide further updates.”

History of elk in Banff

Archaeological sites in Banff have found elk dating back more than 10,000 years.

By the turn of the 19th century, they were largely hunted to extinction.

They were reintroduced to the Bow Valley and Ya Ha Tinda area from Yellowstone National Park after the First World War.

In subsequent decades, they grew to more than 1,000 and became notorious for damaging property and injuring people.

A culling program began in the 1960s, but when the 1942 movie Bambi was re-released, it caused backlash, Hebblewhite said.

They moved into the townsites in search of food and safety from predators such as wolves and cougars, which are more hesitant to go into urban areas.

By the late 1990s, when Banff townsite elk populations hit the hundreds, there were fewer predators. The Trans-Canada Highway had been fenced off and wildlife crossings added, all but eliminating elk deaths by vehicle, while human-elk conflicts soared.

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Elk may be prey, but they are far from helpless animals.

They can weigh between 500 and 1,000 pounds and move in short bursts up to 70 kilometres an hour.

People are supposed to come no closer than 30 metres from elk, but not everyone follows the rules.

In 1991, there was a “serious elk-caused human injury,” and 42 human-elk conflicts in 1993 that led to people needing medical attention. That grew to 107 in 1998, according to access to information documents.

“Everyone thought it was cool having 550 elk around and then one year — boom — seven people were hospitalized, including a seven-year-old kid who was on life support, and all of a sudden it wasn’t so cool,” said Hebblewhite.

Banff’s planning strategy

Parks Canada aimed to reduce elk population to about 100 by 2003, with roughly 350 moved to Columbia Valley, Kootenay Plains and southwestern Alberta.

Hunting was never in the cards, said Hebblewhite, since “we’re extremely unpredictable and poor at our job” when it comes to effective population management.

The plan led to a significant decline, but elk continued to be a main focus for Parks Canada staff.

From 2010-24, staff spent 15 per cent of their time dedicated to wildlife on elk — the third highest demand after black and grizzly bears.

When elk started to increase to about 250 in 2005, a recommendation of culling 20 elk per year was made since “experts are now concerned some of the issues related to high elk populations may reoccur.”

According to Parks Canada wildlife statistics from 2010-24, elk had the highest number of recorded aggressive encounters at 2,224 incidents, ranging from bluff charges and charging people or domestic animals. Of those, 613 were in Banff National Park.

Documents obtained via access to information laws stated key factors to monitor population management is continued development in the Bow Valley as well as increased visitation since “carnivore habitat effectiveness and populations will decrease, predation will decrease and elk-human conflicts will again increase.”

Hebblewhite said when elk become comfortable with people, it’s a “bottomless pit of management.” He said it’s “pretty shocking” how close some people will get.

“It perpetuates the habituation cycle. Any wildlife becoming habituated to humans is bad,” said Hebblewhite. “It’s usually bad for the wildlife. It’s usually bad for the people.”