Elk Herd Stampede in a Castle Rock Neighborhood

Hundreds of elk running. It's called a stampede. Imagine seeing it right out your backdoor? Lucky for us, when it happened last week in Castle Rock, it was caught on video.

Elk are faster than you may think. There are reports of elk racing horses alongside fences, and the elk will win the short race. According to VisitEstesPark.com they can run "as fast as 40 miles per hour".

If you're new to Colorado let me go over the elk basics. You're going to see a lot of them and not just in Estes Park. Colorado has the largest elk population in the world according to the Colorado Parks and Wildlife. There are over 280,000 of them in Colorado. Elk are bigger than deer and have dark brown butts. Male elk are called bulls and grow antlers. Female elk are a little smaller than the bulls and called cows. Confusing when you throw in the name of another species right? The Native American term for elk is wapiti.

Elk are the largest in the deer family according to Wikipedia, with bulls getting up to 1100 pounds.

These are large wild animals and every year we see people getting too close to them and getting hurt. Getting to see a stampede like this from the safety of your home is pretty awesome.

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