Boxley Valley Elk Rut

Each autumn, the open bottomlands of Boxley Valley fill with one of the strangest and most stirring sounds in the American woods: the high, eerie bugle of a bull elk in rut, echoing off the Ozark hills at dawn and dusk.

Arkansas lost its native elk to overhunting in the mid-1800s, and for roughly 150 years the animals were simply gone.

A reintroduction beginning in the 1980s, using Rocky Mountain elk, took hold along the upper Buffalo National River, and today a wild herd ranges these valleys, with Boxley Valley the single best place to see them.

During the September-to-October peak of the rut, more than a hundred elk gather in the valley, and the great antlered bulls bugle, spar, and herd cows in a contest for breeding rights, sometimes locking antlers in dramatic clashes.

The action concentrates in the cool margins of the day, early morning until mid-morning and again from late afternoon into dusk, when the elk move out into the open fields along the highway.

Watching a bull throw back his head and let out that wild call across a misty Ozark valley, in a place where elk had been silent for a century and a half, is a powerful encounter with a restored piece of wild America.

Where to see it

A taste of where to see it. The full map, exact coordinates and the best timing for each spot live in the app.