God only knows how many miles I have walked in the woods in my lifetime or how many acres I’ve covered from state to state. During those times I have always found things that amazed me. It could be something as simple as watching a squirrel get a drink of water from a fast moving stream to sitting for several minutes observing a mother deer teaching her young about survival techniques. But sometimes I find something that sends me exiting the woods scratching my head.
It was perhaps as long as twenty-some years ago now, I was hunting in an area where I was familiar with the overall layout of the land but not very familiar with the specifics. In other words, I hadn’t hunted in these particular woods before.
I tell you. The reason I went there to hunt was threefold. One, I always saw deer crossing the road and entering into these woods. Two, I had come to the conclusion that not very many, if any at all, hunters worked these woods and three, I was working not too far from here so I could go there early in the mornings and maybe even get a short hunt in just before dark.
I woke one Saturday morning to a surprising 4-inch snowfall. I bailed out of bed, geared up and headed out to this area for the first time.
I quietly poked around getting a sense of terrain, growth and I also was looking for game trails, scrapes and pawings.
The snow made it quiet that’s for sure but the higher in the sky the sun moved, the warmer it became. The snow was softening and getting sticky, making a crunchy sound under foot.
As I traversed from one area to another, often crossing my own footsteps, I noticed two things. The snow had now become very wet as it melted and the area was completely trampled with deer tracks.
I was in an area that had a mixture of young softwood trees, mostly pine and fir, and white birch. I have found these areas many times in the woods and for me they have always been fruitful.
The area I was in with this kind of growth and cover, was perhaps only one to two acres in size and right smack dab in the middle of this was a large knoll that rose up maybe 10 feet above the surrounding terrain. Again, I repeat. The ground was trampled with almost no area free of deer tracks.
When I spotted the knoll, I moved stealthfully toward it – one painstaking step at a time. What surprised me first was when I reached the top. It was wide open covering an area of about 50 feet by 50 feet.
But what shocked me was what I saw in this opening. I’ll the best I can to describe what I saw. Around the perimeter of this opening where somewhere in the vicinity of 20 deer beds. Their imprints showed clearly in the compressed snow.
There also were several areas where the snow was turned up almost as if someone had gone in there with a rototiller. To help clarify, I have seen many, many times where deer will paw in the snow and turn over the leaves etc., in search of food. This was not that. I have also seen areas where two bucks have squared off sparring in the snow. Again, this wasn’t the same. My only conclusion at the time was I had happened onto a seen where an orgy had taken place.
But the oddest of all things that I had never seen before and haven’t again was the discolorations in the snow. The entire open area was nearly covered with snow that was colored anywhere from bright red, to pinkish, to greenish shades, brown and yellow.
I realized right away that whatever had been dropped into the snow being as saturated as the snow was at that time, would diffuse and enlarge the area that I was seeing. What I didn’t know is what had made what I was seeing.
My only conclusions were that one or more bucks had happened onto a scene where several does had been bedded and were now up and about. In areas where it was plain to see where a deer had urinated in the snow, the snow was discolored sometimes very red, brownish red and it looked mucousy, if that is a word.
Is this part of a normal discharge made by a doe in estrous? Did this occur before or after the mating? How many does did that buck have?
My conclusions may be all wrong. I really don’t know and I am left with more unanswered questions that answered. This all may be normal behaviour and it just so happened on the kind of snow that not only made it visible to me for the first time but also amplified what was happening.
I sure wish I had had my little digital camera at that time that I carry now. My question to my readers is this. Have any of you seen anything like this? If so would you be willing to share it with us? Does anyone have another explanation?
This to me is one of those unusual and/or unexplained things I find in the woods that fascinates me and draws me back in search for more.
Tom Remington
Domestic Elk Crash The Gate – Escape!
The Chief Joseph private elk reserve in eastern Idaho was the scene of the great escape. Around 160 elk, being described as domesticated, appeared to have herded together and crashed the fence knocking it down allowing them to escape.
This group of escapee-elk are threatening to mix in with the elk herd that is part of the Yellowstone gang and this is worrying officials in both Wyoming and Idaho.
What has made matters worse is the owner of the Chief Joseph ranch didn’t report the breech of the fence.
Elk hunting season with bow and arrow has begun in that region and hunters are being asked to make every attempt to recognize the domesticated elk. The elk are supposed to by wearing an orange tag visible from as far away as 150 yards but officials think the owner hasn’t properly tagged his animals.
Today, the governor of Idaho, Jim Risch, has signed an emergency declaration to have the 160 elk killed. The order provides for fish and game officials as well as any licensed elk hunter or private land owner, to kill the elk.
According to officials, the elk can pose a risk to the wild elk in several ways. One way is through the spread of disease – chronic wasting disease, brucellosis or other sicknesses like liver flukes and tuberculosis. Another is through interbreeding. It will weaken the wild elk gene, so some scientists say.
One report yesterday said that the owner of the ranch had refused Idaho officials to test his trophy bull elk for chronic wasting disease. Evidently the owner, Rex Rammell a veterinarian, hasn’t been the model game ranch owner and has had previous clashes with fish and game authorities.
I have to ask if this reaction has gone too far? We should at least raise the question particularly when there are differing opinions about the so-called “genetic purity” of the elk and new studies that show that how we are handling diseases such as chronic wasting disease and brucellosis may not be correct.
Debra Lawrence, chief of animal health and livestock with the Idaho Agriculture Department, says the idea of protecting genetic purity in the elk is overblown.
In an article written in the Jackson Hole News and Guide, a study just completed and printed in the Frontiers in Ecology journal, says the methods being used to test and slaughter are not only ineffective but may be promoting the spread of disease.
I should also point out that this same report condemns the use of feed stations of elk and other wild animals saying it is unnatural and is the reason for disease spread.
Maybe ordering the slaughter of these 160 elk is the right thing to do and maybe it isn’t but we must face one reality. We have come to this place because we have created everything that led up to this. Point a finger at anyone you wish but start first by pointing it at yourself.
Greed in one form or another has brought us to a point where disease is rampant among many species of wild game. It it is clear that creating feed stations for animals has become deadly for them, yet we still do it.
It is so simple really but we as humans insist that we have to go against what is natural because we think we can make it better. When you group people together in large masses, especially in enclosed areas, it doesn’t take long before one person’s sneezing, achy, stuffy-head, fever passes on to the next. We think wild animals are different?
The elk farmer wants to raise elk and charge $6,000 a head to have hunters come and hunt them. I know nothing about the ranch and will not sit in judgement as to whether his preserve meets my own standards of a bonafide hunt preserve. The bottom line is the driving force behind the ranch is the $6,000 a head.
The state of Idaho, caved in to pressure put on them by the owner of the Chief Joseph ranch to get what he wanted. Why was it necessary to do that? Was it tax dollars or local increased revenue? Was it good ole politics?
Tourists and wildlife gawkers from their luxury cars demand that they can have drive-up wildlife viewing and not pay for it.
Animal rights groups are striving toward leaving wild animals to fend for themselves with overgrown populations, spreading disease and starving to death.
Hunters want to sit in their comfy, high-tech tree stands and look down on their feed beds waiting for the trophy to appear at the same time condemning the elk farmer.
Scientists insist that animals be brought into areas that were never natural habitat for them, insisting they can make it work. Why? Job security? Because they’re scientists?
Why do we insist that we know better? We grow our own fish, dump them into waters so greedy fishermen can catch them all out – it’s called put and take and everything we are doing now is leading toward put and take hunting. Oh, hell why not?
We are stocking the woods like we stock the rivers, lakes and streams. Man can’t replicate what God did but we keep on trying, spreading disease and threatening what’s left of the real thing.
When will we ever learn……when will we ever learn?
*All posts on the topic:
More Elk Killed In Idaho – Some By Hunters
Idaho Elk Farmer Plans To Sue The State
Scientists Will Test Killed Idaho Elk For Disease And Genetic Make-up
A Helicopter, A Plane And 25 Agents Can’t Find 160 Domestic Elk
Escaped Idaho Elk Being Slaughtered. Wyoming Ordered To Kill Elk Also
Tom Remington