Thread: tell me about Wapiti

Originally Posted by 7mmwsm

In NZ deer farming Wapiti usually refers to animals which originated from Fiordland Wapiti. Elk refers to lines which originate from animals, semen or embryos imported from North America for farming.

Yes this answer is correct. Because there were Pure bred animals imported into NZ from Canada in the 1980's and early 90's and also wild captured animals out of Fiordland ( non of which were pure but all had some Red deer blood ) a way was needed to differentiate between the two. Using the common Canadian name Elk for the imported animals.Attachment 97513 The trophy animal is the result of a cross between an imported Elk and a non pure live captured Fiordland Wap cow. The other photo shows a Wapiti / Elk bull in velvet and an Eastern Red stag. The Easterns get a lot bigger than our wild reds that are from Western European subspecies. An Eastern stag will commonly pull the scales down to 300 to 350 kg