Elks in Småland

Elks are most active at dawn and dusk as they search for food (and present a traffic hazard!). Elks eat twigs, leaves and berries. By day they hide in their ‘daytime lair’. A large bull elk can weigh up to 500 kg.

The bulls shed their antlers every winter, and they grow back slowly so that the bulls are ready for the mating season in the autumn. A female elk has one or two calves, which stay with their mother until the next year’s calves arrive the following spring. Elks usually live alone. The groups of elks we see are usually cows with calves or yearlings. Cows and bulls may come together before mating, and groups of bulls sometimes wander around in summer in so-called bachelor groups...

In Sweden 250,000 hunters hunt elk in October. Around 100,000 elk are shot every year, just over one third of the country’s total elk population.
Fancy coming face to face with an elk? Visit one of our five elk parks in Småland: at Markaryd, Ljungby, Lagan, Tingsryd and Vimmerby.

  • Smålands Turism | tel +46 (0)36 35 12 70 | info@visitsmaland.se | AB Destination Småland | tel +46 (0)470 73 32 70 | info@destinationsmaland.se