In late March 2020, Julie and I move to the Oregon coast to flee a city that has outgrown us.
In April I see a herd of elk in the dunes for the first time. I’m in complete awe. These elk roam and live within Gearhart and Warrenton city boundaries. Neighbors remind us not to get too close, not to let our dog get too close, to appreciate the elk from afar. All this seems reasonable. Sometimes that means waiting. It reminds us to slow down.
The night of July 4th, Julie and I watch the fireworks over Del Rey Beach. We can’t see the beach or ocean from our house, but we can see the sky above it. This is our first 4th of July being isolated and insulated enough to see the fireworks but not hear them. For the first time our Cockapoo doesn’t shiver and hide in our laps. I think about how war vets can react badly to backfiring cars and loud bangs. I wonder if the elk are down on the dunes watching the sky or hiding somewhere from the sound.
The morning of July 5th we drive on the beach—in Gearhart you can do that—to clean up post-celebratory firework shrapnel. We fill half a garbage bag with blasted cardboard, empty plastic caps, and discarded beverage containers. We find two blanched sand dollars in the surf to take home. We watch pelicans dive for fish, the vastness of the ocean infinitely dwarfing us.
July 9th we pass a large elk’s body lying crumpled and lifeless on the beach, close to the Del Rey Beach entrance. The elk’s hair is covered with sand and dried salt. His jaw lies slack. His four-point antlers reach crookedly skyward. All dead organisms go through a similar, though accelerated, fate likened to premodern home abandonment: 1) seemingly empty, with a possible light on somewhere, 2) once-fortified architecture giving way and folding in on itself, 3) the fleeting skeleton of an exposed foundation, 4) the covering over of time and earth and wind.
The morning of July 11th, a posting on the Elk Facebook Group page reads that on the night of July 4th an elk became spooked by the fireworks on the beach and ran into the ocean. As the explosions continued and sulfur flowers bloomed above him, and… “the crowd pushed in closer …Poor thing just kept swimming out into the waves trying to get away…pure panic.”
The afternoon of August 10th we see a cow – a female elk – and her calf looking out at the ocean, standing on the dunes alongside the parking lot just south of the Del Rey Beach entrance. I don’t think about the possibility of this being the dead elk’s family until right now, this minute, while writing this.
A month later, the afternoon of September 10th, we watch the herd of elk walk from the beach into the tall grass of the dunes just north of the Del Rey Beach entrance. I don’t think: Memorial. I don’t think: How do they mourn a possible leader? But now I wonder. Hindsight creates narrative. Silence gives way to reflection.
Another month and the morning of October 8th we wake up to forty elk grazing on the bushes around our yard. Sometimes, while chewing, an elk glances back at us through one of our windows. Enormous eyes looking in. They look majestic and unimpressed. We get video of a bull walking around scaring the rest of the herd with long strands of White Pampas Grass—that he headbutted until it was no longer a threat—hanging over his face like a Halloween mask. On Instagram somebody comments, who knew elks could be such dorks? As if saying, look how much they’re like us.
We watch a calf nurse from its mother. Look how much they’re like us.
When the herd moves on, our yard feels emptier than it ever has, despite the wreckage of half-eaten shrubs and piles of feces left in their wake. I scan the damage and debris, and realize how lucky we are, how totally worth this minor tithing is.
The morning of October 23rd, The Astorian runs an article explaining that Tim Boyle, the CEO of Columbia Sportswear and the owner of Gearhart Golf Links since 2011 is willing to pay to have the Gearhart herd relocated. Apparently, deterrents such as coyote urine, coyote replicas, paintball guns, and herding of the elk with golf carts have all proven ineffective. A Gearhart Golf Links spokesman says that the course spends tens of thousands of dollars annually to keep the greens pristine and playable.
I think, So?
Wildlife experts state that relocation would be detrimental for the herd. Culling the herd has been considered amongst some local leadership and citizens, but is not a serious consideration, yet.
The elk herds of this region have roamed this land before Columbus, before Lewis and Clark, settlers, automobiles, subdivisions, neighborhoods, and golf courses. They’ve adapted to an environment we’ve drastically manipulated, felt civilization drive through and past them, witnessed their kin slaughtered and field dressed, watched the skies and seas fill with strange objects, their home turned into the homes of others. Yet the elk hold their heads high, even while being constricted in ways they couldn’t possibly understand, even while being Pampas Grass dorks.
If they were more vengeful creatures, I could better grasp peoples’ trepidation; they are powerful. But it’s not like the elk wouldn’t have their reasons.
In 1806 Lewis and Clark wrote about the plentitude of elk in the current Clatsop County region. By the early 1900s, we’d hunted almost all of Clatsop County’s Roosevelt Elk population. Currently, the Gearhart elk herd is approximated to have grown from 30-40 members to roughly 80-120 over the last decade.
But elk don’t live, or propagate, like humans. They react when they feel threatened — Look how much they’re like us — but aren’t accustomed to curbing, culling, and killing at their discretion or for pleasurable pursuits. The herd has only grown by the tens per year. Compare that to the thousand-plus Gearhart residents, the 40,224 and growing Clatsop County residents, the tens of thousands of annual visitors to the north coast, the 7.7 billion humans on an Earth bursting at the seams.
To be fair, there have been incidents—and there will be more if people can’t take the most basic of precautions. There was the trampling of a pet whippet in 2016, a dog’s broken leg in 2017, a minivan assault and subsequent cow-gnawed passenger door in 2018 — the minivan’s driver left horrified but unharmed.
People worry that an eventual elk on human crime is inevitable. It’s possible. But as of last year, Clatsop County had the second highest human on human crime rate per capita in Oregon. Somehow, other species don’t appear to be our dominant problem.
As I write this, it’s November 5th. I’m trying to remember to be reflective before being reactive. I’m trying to embrace the elk’s grace, who have earned the right to hold their heads high. I’m trying to believe that even though we’re walking around with Pampas Grass on our faces, it’s okay, as long as we eventually own it.
By Jason Arias
Jason Arias lives on the Oregon coast. His debut short story collection Momentary Illumination of Objects In Motion was published in 2018 by Black Bomb Books. Jason’s stories and essays have appeared in The Nashville Review, Oregon Humanities Magazine, Harpur Palate, Lidia Yuknavitch’s TED Book: The Misfit’s Manifesto, and multiple anthologies. For links to more of Jason’s work please visit him at JasonAriasAuthor.com.