Part 11 (1/2)
Big wild folk do not range afar nor at random, nor do they drift about like gypsies. Most animals range in a small locality,--spend their lives in a comparatively small territory. They are familiar with a small district and thus are able to use it at all times to the best advantage. They know where to find the earliest gra.s.s; where flies are least troublesome; the route over which to retreat in case of attack; and where is the best shelter from the storm.
[Ill.u.s.tration: A DEER IN DEEP SNOW, ROCKY MOUNTAIN NATIONAL PARK]
With the coming of a snow-storm big game commonly move to the most sheltered spot in their district. This may or may not be close to a food-supply. A usual place of refuge is in a cover or sheltered spot on a sunny southern slope,--a place, too, in which the snow will first melt. Immediately after a storm there may often be found a motley collection of local wild folk in a place of this kind. Bunched, the big game hope and wait. Unless the snow is extremely deep they become restless and begin to scatter after two or three days.
There are a number of places in each locality which may offer temporary, or even permanent, relief to snow-hampered game. These are open streams, flood-cleared flats, open spots around springs, wind-cleared places, and openings, large and small, made by snow-slides. During long-lying deep snows the big game generally use every local spot or opening of vantage.
In many regions a fall of snow is followed by days of fair weather.
During these days most of the snow melts; often the earth is almost free of one snow before another fall comes. In places of this kind the game have periods of ease. But in vast territories the snow comes, deepens, and lies deep over the earth for weeks. To endure long-lying deep snows requires special habits or methods. The yarding habit, more or less intensely developed, is common with sheep, elk, deer, and moose of all snowy lands.
The careful yarding habit of the moose is an excellent method of triumphing over deep snow. In early winter, or with the deepening snow, a moose family proceed to a locality where food is abundant; here they restrict themselves to a small stamping-ground,--one of a stone's throw or a few hundred feet radius. Constant tramping and feeding in this limited area compacts the snow in s.p.a.ces and in all the trails so that the animals walk on top of it. Each additional snow is in turn trampled to sustaining compactness.
At first the low-growing herbage is eaten; but when this is buried, and the animals are raised up by added snow, they feed upon shrubs; then on the willow or the birch tops, and sometimes on limbs well up in the trees, which the platform of deeply acc.u.mulated snow enables them to reach. Commonly moose stay all winter in one yard. Sometimes the giving-out of the food-supply may drive them forth. Then they try to reach another yard. But deep snow or wolves may overcome one or all on the way.
During one snowshoe trip through western Colorado I visited seven deer-yards. One of these had been attacked by wolves but probably without result. Apparently five of the others had not as yet been visited by deadly enemies. The seventh and most interesting yard was situated in a deep gorge amid rugged mountains. It was long and narrow, and in it the deer had fed upon withered gra.s.s, plant stalks, and willow twigs. All around the undrifted snow lay deep. The limbless bases of the spruces were set deep in snow, and their lower limbs were pulled down and tangled in it. These trees had the appearance of having been pushed part way up through the snow. In places the cliffs showed their bare brown sides. Entire spruce groves had been tilted to sharp angles by the slipping and dragging snow weight on steep places; among them were tall spruces that appeared like great feathered arrows that had been shot into snowy steeps. The leafless aspens attractively displayed their white and greenish-white skin on limbs that were held just above the snow.
With a curve, the yard shaped itself to the buried stream. It lay between forested and moderately steep mountains that rose high. In this primeval winter scene the deer had faced the slow-going snow in the primitive way. At the upper end of the yard all the snow was trampled to compactness, and over this animals could walk without sinking in. Firm, too, were the surfaces of the much looped and oft trodden trails. The trail nearest to the stream pa.s.sed beneath a number of beautiful snow-piled arches. These arches were formed of outreaching and interlacing arms of parallel growths of willow and birch cl.u.s.ters. The stream gurgled beneath its storm window of rough ice.
I rounded the yard and at the lower end I found the carca.s.ses of the entire herd of deer,--nine in all,--evidently recently killed by a mountain lion. He had eaten but little of their flesh. Wolves had not yet discovered this feast, but a number of Rocky Mountain jays were there. The dark spruces stood waiting! No air stirred. Bright sunlight and bluish pine shadows rested upon the glazed whiteness of the snow.
The flock of cheerful chickadees feeding through the trees knew no tragedy.
The winter food of big game consists of dead gra.s.s, shrubs, twigs, buds and bark of trees, moss, and dry plants. At times gra.s.s dries or cures before the frost comes. When thus cured it retains much nutrition,--is, in fact, unraked hay. If blighted by frost it loses its flavor and most of its food value.
During summer both elk and deer range high on the mountains. With the coming of winter they descend to the foothill region, where the elk collect in large herds, living in yards in case of prolonged deep snow. Deer roam in small herds. Occasionally a herd of the older elk will for weeks live in the comparatively deep snow on northern slopes,--slopes where the snow crusts least. Here they browse off alder and even aspen bark.
The present congestion of elk in Jackson Hole represents an abnormal condition brought about by man. The winter feed on which they formerly lived is devoured by sheep or cattle during the summer; a part of their former winter range is mowed for hay; they are hampered by fences. As a result of these conditions many suffer and not a few starve.
Wolves are now afflicting both wild and tame herds in Jackson Hole.
Apparently the wolves, which formerly were unknown here in winter, have been drawn thither by the food-supply which weak or dead elk afford.
The regular winter home of wild sheep is among the peaks above the limits of tree growth. Unlike elk and deer, the mountain sheep is found in the heights the year round. He may, both in winter and summer, make excursions into the lowlands, but during snowy times he clings to the heights. Here he usually finds a tableland or a ridge that has been freed of snow by the winds. In these snow-free places he can feed and loiter and sometimes look down on unfortunate snow-bound deer and elk.
The bunching habit of big game during periods of extreme cold or deep snow probably confers many benefits. It discourages the attacks of carnivorous enemies, and usually renders such attacks ineffective.
Crowding also gives the greatest warmth with the least burning of fat fuel. The conservation of energy by storm-bound animals is of the utmost importance. Cold and snow make complicated endurance tests; the animals must with such handicaps withstand enemies and sometimes live for days with but little or nothing to eat.
Big game, on occasions, suffer bitterly through a combination of misfortunes. Something may prevent a herd reaching its best shelter, and it must then endure the storm in poor quarters; pursuit may scatter and leave each one stranded alone in a bad place; in such case each will suffer from lonesomeness, even though it endure the cold and defy enemies. Most animals, even those that are normally solitary, appear to want society during emergencies.
A deep snow is sometimes followed by a brief thaw, then by days of extreme cold. The snow crusts, making it almost impossible for big game to move, but encouragingly easy for wolves to travel and to attack. Of course, long periods separate these extremely deadly combinations. Probably the ordinary loss of big game from wolves and mountain lions is less than is imagined.
Some years ago an old Ute Indian told me that during a winter of his boyhood the snow for weeks lay ”four ponies deep” over the Rocky Mountains, and that ”most elk die, many ponies die, wolves die, and Indian nearly die too.” A ”Great Snow” of this kind is terrible for wild folk.
Snow and cold sometimes combine to do their worst. The snow covers everything deeply; then follows an unbroken period of extreme cold; the Ice King is again enthroned; the snow fiendishly refuses to melt, and lies for weeks; the endurance of most wild folk becomes exhausted, and birds, herds, and wolves perish. Similar calamities used occasionally to afflict our primitive ancestors.
Over the vast Northwest a feature of the climate is the winter-annihilating Chinook wind. This occasionally saves the people of the wilds when other relief is impossible. The snowy earth is quickly transformed by this warm, dry wind. In a few hours conditions become summer-like. Fortunately, the Chinook often follows a blizzard.
Many a time at the eleventh hour it has dramatically saved the waiting, suffering birds and rescued the snow-buried and starving folk of the wilds.
The beaver and the bear are often benefited by the deep snows which afflict their wild neighbors. During the prolonged hibernating sleep, the bear does not eat, but he commonly needs a thick snowy blanket to keep him comfortable. The beaver has his winter stores on the bottom of the pond beneath the ice. These he reaches from his house by swimming beneath the ice from the house to the food-pile. If the ice is not covered by snow, it may, during a cold winter, freeze thickly, even to the bottom, and thus cause a starving time in the beaver colony.
Deep snow appears not to trouble the ”stupidest animal in the woods,”