Shy elk have a better chance at dodging a hunter's bullet than their extroverted counterparts, University of Alberta-led research shows.

Data collected from GPS collars on more than 100 male and female elk in southwestern Alberta led the team to conclude that the elk population could be divided into two categories: “bold runners” and “shy hiders.”

Bold-runner elk, both males and females, moved quickly through the study area and preferred to graze in open fields for the most abundant and nutritious grass, the researchers say. Shy hiders behaved very differently, choosing to graze on the sparse vegetation of wooded areas and moving slowly and cautiously.

Simone Ciuti, who led the study, says this is the first time an animal’s personality type has been linked to survival in a hunting season.

“Up until now, it was believed the physical traits of an elk dictated what animals were taken by hunters,” Ciuti said on the university's website. “Big male elk with large antler racks are traditionally the prime target for hunters.”

Ciuti says GPS collars were put on a specific group of male elk.

“For the study, 45 two-and-a-half-year-old male elk were collared,” explained Ciuti. “At two-and-a-half years of age, this was the first time these young males were eligible hunting targets.” Thirty-three per cent of the males were taken by hunters. All were identified by GPS data as bold runners.

The researchers found that the same held true for a wider age group of 77 female elk in the study. All females between two and nine years of age and identified as bold runners were taken by hunters. All the female elk in that age group identified as shy hiders survived the hunt.

Ciuti says the data showed something interesting in the survival rate of older female elk.

“All the females older than nine years survived the hunting season. That shows us that in female elk, whether they’re bold runners or shy hiders, if they lived to nine years of age, they adapted to hunters and became less visible targets.”

The study was published in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B.