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“The wolves had trapped the elk on a train overpass and wore the much larger animal down with continuous lunges and bites.”

Martin said watching it was like a window into survival in nature.

“I came away in awe of the victors and their tenacity, intelligence and co-operation,” he said. “A shadow of sadness for the elk was a part of this story and I gave thanks for what that life lost meant to this pack.”

Afterward, Parks Canada staff asked Canadian Pacific to slow its trains to a crawl through the area for about an hour so they could remove the elk carcass and prevent any of the wolves from being hit on the track.

It did not lead to any delays for the railway, said Salem Woodrow, a spokeswoman for Canadian Pacific Railway.

Michel said they would normally leave the carcass out for the wolves to eat, but there was nowhere they could move it safely, so it’s being stored in a large freezer until they can put it out in a secure location.

“We’ll get (it) back out on to the landscape in the spring,” he said. “It’s unfortunate — we always like to give them the opportunity to keep it in the location where it’s been killed, but it doesn’t always work out that way.”

The wolves had trapped the elk on a train overpass and wore the much larger animal down with continuous lunges and bites.

The incident is the latest in a series of highly visible kills by the same wolf pack, which has five members, around the Banff townsite since last summer.

The pack, which has been hunting elk and deer, led wildlife officials to review the park’s elk management strategy.

In the annual survey last November, officials counted a total of 210 elk — including 136 cows, 21 bulls, 16 young males and 37 calves — between the east gates and Castle junction.