Game Behavor Science

In the following website pages we present some new hunting science observations of animal behavior which will make your hunt more successful and enjoyable. Beloved baseball player Yogi Bera coined many lovable truisms. One of my favorites is, "You can observe a lot by looking." Unfortunately, we have not fully entered into and nor adequately explored the world of nature. We often overlook the knowledge of our ancestors who had to hunt well to survive. Knowlege of nature is rapidly expanding. In the future our grandchildren will look back at us and say what ignorant idiots we were. In the following paragraphs, I want to reiterate: It is not what humans see and sense, but how and why animals visualize, hear and perceive their world that counts for their survival. Knowing this can greatly add to hunter success. Chemical Newspapers and Your Hunting Success: Elk are macrosomates – they have an extremely acute sense of smell used to decipher their habitat. They use chemical clues in the air to detect food, other animals, danger, temper of mates, breeding susceptibility and even social status of other elk. In essence, odors are their chemical newspapers for the forest. Elk mark their domain with tree rubbing/brushing, scraping from hock and orbital eye scent glands, and fecal/urine markings of spots important to them. Elk produce pheromone signal chemicals in specialized glands of their eyes, the outside of hind legs, beneath the tail, and around sex organs. Urine and dung contain hormones such as testosterone and estrogen which disclose sex, age, dominance, breeding cycle stage, and health of individuals. Bull elk will urinate and then roll in the urine to advertise their location and availability to cows, and as a threat to other bulls. Many cross-species animals visit what are called “chemical newspapers”. Each visitor detects the movement and physiological conditions of other animals. You would be most fortunate to recognize a good one and locate a trailcam there. Alberta animal researcher posted a wonderful video that you simply must view to appreciate how animals use scent kiosks to find out what is going on in their forest. Alberta Parks Biologist and Park Ranger Gelnn Naylor used a trailcam to record intra-species visits to a chemical newspaper tree. It is well worth your time to view the video at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Aihvu ZiDhsg. With said, consider the hunter emerging from a food-smelling tent after a glorious 5:00 AM breakfast of bacon, eggs and perked coffee. Lads, for your hunting success treasure the quickly prepared, handy, low odor, constipation-fighting, cheap little packets of instant oatmeal. A general observation I’ve made is that hunters eating freeze dried meals seem to get more elk. But then, maybe those hunters were the intense, aggressive, animal-knowledgeable fellows who just got out of the bunk earlier and hunted harder and longer. If you are intent on enjoying gourmet meals, consider changing into sweat pants when cooking and eating, and leaving your hunting trousers, shirt and coat hanging outside in a dry cleaner bag. Now lets investigate how game animals use their unique senses.