© 2014-2021 Copyright by P. K. H. Groth, Denver, Colorado, USA All rights reserved - See contact page for for permission to republish article
excerpts.
Daily Elk Movements:
More animal science needs to be offered the modern hunter, and here is some. This is one
of my unique hunting illustrations in my book.
The data were obtained by elk research scientists studying the disturbance effects of vehicle,
horse, bicycle and foot traffic in an elk habitat. Satellite radio collars precisely tracked not elk
spatial movements, but also elk movement rates over many days. I discuss the disturbance
conclusions in my book.
The study largely concentrated on disturbances to elk, but overlooked the pertinence to
hunters. The researchers also tracked the elk movements during periods when there were
no human activity disturbances. The movement annotations to the their data are my
interpretations of why elk move over a day. Notice the post-noon movement that occurs on
warm days. Warm air combined with sunlight shining directly down through trees cause
discomfort for heavily furred and sub-hide fattened fall elk. These movement are alluded to
by some authors, but the scientific data are not presented. Do not be back in camp eating
lunch with your buddies on these days! You will do best to carry a bag lunch and a book to
keep you quiet and content. Elsewhere in this website is a story about how I ignorantly
forgot this mid day movement!
The Phantom Electric Fence
Deer apparently can behave peculiarly even several generations after their forebears were
affected by barriers. An iron fence divided Bavaria from Czechoslovakia during the Cold War.
A second fence was two to five miles inside the actual Czech border. This was an electrified
barbwire fence used to keep Czechs from fleeing the country. The electric fence was
removed over twenty years ago. There is a group of red deer in the Sumava National Park
that still will not go near the position of the former electric fence. The aversion to the fence's
phantom zone appears to have been transferred from doe to fawns over several
generations. Researcher Pavel Sustr found that another red deer group in Bavaria which had
never been exposed to the electric fence migrates freely across this phantom zone (R.
Siegel, 2014). Modern epigenetics is reveling that extreme experiences,emotions and habits
can almost instantaneously alter genomes.
Activity in an area can cause game to migrate. Consider where you are hunting and what
might have happened in the area before the hunting season, or even many years ago. Are
there signs of a lot of summer activities, recent logging, mining or road building? In 2014 I
tried in vain to archery hunt deer where deer normally are. I saw none. Asking a local
resident when exiting after one futile day, I found out that the EPA had been rumbling trucks
and heavy reclamation equipment up the valley all summer to seal an old gold mine. Three
years later there still are few deer there.
Magnetic Deer Movement and Dog Pooping
Google Earth images are exposing some pretty interesting animal habits and abilities. Hynek
Burda of the University of Duisburg-Essen, Germany, statistically studied satellite images of
thousands of resting and grazing cattle and deer around the world. The cattle tend to be
oriented facing the north or south magnetic poles. Deer show similar orientation
predispositions. It appears the large mammals join some bats and rodent species in
responding to geomagnetism. The north-south alignments of deer and cattle are not
apparent when they are under randomly traversing under power lines. There the animals
are in random positions when resting or grazing. However, east-west orientation is observed
under power lines that are running east-west (N. Greenfieldboyce, 2009).
Czech University of Life Sciences researchers observed thousands of dogs preparing for
urination and defecation. They found that dogs like to poop when being aligned north-south
when the earth's magnetic flux is stable. Their directional behavior is absent when the
magnetic flux is unstable (M. Memmott, 2014). There always seems to be fodder for another
thesis project.
Elk Move After a Bitter Cold Stormy Spell: Ranchers have observed the north south
orientation of cattle. Chilled cattle will face north in the morning (northern hemisphere) to
expose their bodies to the most heat from the rising sun. They will align E-W when resting on
very hot days. Elk too like to warm in a morning sun after a particularly cold spell. I suggest
morning scoping east facing tree lines with the intent of seeing elk lounging with their
broadside facing the sun. That is how the bull pictured below was found napping.
Elk and Deer Behavior