Eurasian Elk

A few days ago I wrote about seeing an elk on the edge of the road as we were driving in the dark. It was the first elk I'd seen in months.
Today I loaded the car up for a trip to the recycling centre and as I drove off from the village there was a young bull elk standing in the field by the road. I stopped the car, grabbed my camera and waited to see if it was going to cross the road. It did and I got this picture. It went over the road and a short way along the disused railway before disappearing into the trees. This bull is a youngster and relatively light, so you understand why we really don't want to hit one while driving.
There are a lot of elk in Sweden. In the summer somewhere between 250,000 and 350,000. In the winter, after the hunting season, there are about 100,000 fewer.
The lean meat is delicious and rather hard to get as hunters tend to eat no other meat, and their families and friends are very happy to buy any excess they have. Unfortunately I have no elk hunting friends!
The Eurasian elk, Alces alces alces, is essentially the same animal as the Alaskan moose, Alces alces gigas.