EAGLE COUNTY, Colo. — Annie Egan’s husband called her from work Thursday to tell her he thought the barstool stuck on the head of an elk that’s been spotted in Eagle County belongs to them.

“You need to go out to the fire pit and look under the table,” Egan’s husband told her. “I think our barstool is on an elk’s neck.”

Wildlife officers in the Eagle Valley have received several reports of a female elk with a bar stool on its head. The animal was first spotted in the middle of February, and has been photographed by locals and gotten national media attention since.

Egan hadn’t seen the photo of the elk, but went outside to the yard of their Brush Creek Road home to check the spot where they stored an old stool for the winter. It wasn’t there.

“We have a big table that we store things under, and the stool was stored underneath the table, and it ain’t under it,” said Egan. “It looks just like it, with metal around the bottom.”

Egan got the stool from a friend. It was old and she didn’t think much of it, so she put it outside for something to sit on when they use their fire pit. The stool doesn’t really have any defining characteristics, she said.

“The only marking is that it’s old,” Egan said. “It’s weathered because it’s been outside, and it has that metal bar that you would put your feet on down below. We didn’t have our names written on it or anything.”

Brush Creek was one of the first places the elk was seen. Egan said she often sees elk wandering around her property near the Adam’s Rib Ranch golf course.

“They’re big rooters,” she said. “They’re always looking for stuff.”

Egan figures the elk was roaming around, poked her head into the stool, got spooked and ran off with the stool attached.

District wildlife manager Craig Wescoatt said the stool doesn’t seem to be bothering the animal’s movement, but wildlife officers haven’t been able to get close enough to the elk to remove the stool.

“I’d like to get it back in one piece,” Egan joked.

coutcalt@vaildaily.com