Elk Carcass Trailcam

[7Bartman]

We placed a trailcam on my elk carcass this year to see what would show up. See how many different animals you can spot.

 

[ashersdad]

That's pretty cool!! That was a fat bear.

 

[7Bartman]

That's pretty cool!! That was a fat bear.

Not sure if you saw my elk hunt video, but he definitely scared me when I walked up on him at noon with just my buddy's 38 snubnose in my pocket.

 

[SaskHunter]

Pretty cool, good sized bear too!

 

[Nick87]

Thanks for sharing neat to watch.

 

[stillkickin]

Wow, cool video!

 

[QuazyQuinton]

Cool video. I found it interesting that you didn't get more mammals, and it took a while for a bear to find the carcass. Also, the eagle(s) spent quite a bit of time there. Reminds me of hunting in eastern Oregon a few years ago. We were walking along an old road looking down into a canyon. There was a bunch of activity under some trees which turned out to be an elk ribcage with lots of magpies. All of a sudden there was something dark brown scrambling over the carcass, and I lost no time laying out to shoot the bear...until the bear spread its wings and turned out to be an eagle. Good thing I didn't shoot too fast!

QQ

 

[7Bartman]

Cool video. I found it interesting that you didn't get more mammals, and it took a while for a bear to find the carcass. Also, the eagle(s) spent quite a bit of time there. Reminds me of hunting in eastern Oregon a few years ago. We were walking along an old road looking down into a canyon. There was a bunch of activity under some trees which turned out to be an elk ribcage with lots of magpies. All of a sudden there was something dark brown scrambling over the carcass, and I lost no time laying out to shoot the bear...until the bear spread its wings and turned out to be an eagle. Good thing I didn't shoot too fast!

QQ

Not really sure what other mammals there may have been (wolves, mt lion?). Last year, we had a wolverine on the carcass (hence why I placed one this year). It was really fun to watch the wolverine work on the carcass day and night. That martin was there the morning we found the elk and came right up to us, but I guess he only showed up at night afterwards b/c of the eagles.

 

[Djfan]

What state?

 

[kwyeewyk]

Awesome video, cool to see a wolverine, still hoping for that one. I worked on a Brucellosis research project that involved deploying bison fetuses as simulated abortion sites to observe scavenging activity and track the movement of the carcasses. This was before trailcams were a dime a dozen so we didn't use them, but we had radio trackers attached to them that would signal when disturbed and we'd snowmobile/atv/hike around to them all and keep track of them.

Pine martens were one of the most common scavenger, they'd carry the smaller fetuses up into the trees and stash them up there, made them really hard to find. Coyotes also common, they'd carry it off and burying it somewhere else, but we actually only had one bear, and this was around West Yellowstone in the spring during emergence. Those were really the only mammals we observed. Raven, magpie, eagles were common birds, but sometimes a carcass would be out there for weeks and nothing would touch it at all. Turkey vultures reduce a carcass to clean white bone in a matter of hours, by far the most efficient scavenger I observed.

 

[runningmt]

Love the video, great idea! Thanks for sharing!

 

[7Bartman]

What state?

Idaho

 

[MJE2083]

Very cool. I did something similar with a road kill whitetail several years ago here in PA. We had hawks, crows, coyotes, grey fox, racoon, opossum, and a skunk.

 

[Caseknife]

I put all my bones and scraps out in a pile in the field after processing the meat from my game animals. We have a Bald Eagle nest 1/2 a mile away and at times will have 5 eagles, mix of adult and juvey on the pile at once. Fun one was watching the merlin a few years ago. He was practicing his bird getting skills by strafing the collection of crows and magpies, all too big for him, but he made them scatter on every pass.

 

[Elkhunter24]

awesome thanks for sharing! Goes to show that nothing goes to waste in the wild

 

[Brian in Montana]

Its always amazing to me how fast birds tend to find a carcass or gut like.

And that was a huge bear. Good idea on putting a trailcam on a carcass. Cool video!

 

[HUNTNNW]

My elk carcass this year in Idaho had 0 large predators after 8 days laying there. One coyote, bald eagle

 

[Paul in Idaho]

Great video, thanks for sharing. I put a camera on the carcass of a deer this year. I was surprised to see nothing but magpies and foxes came to eat.

 

[JAHoneyman]

We placed a trailcam on my elk carcass this year to see what would show up. See how many different animals you can spot.

Cool video, took longer than I thought for Mr. Bear to show up.

 

[ashersdad]

Not sure if you saw my elk hunt video, but he definitely scared me when I walked up on him at noon with just my buddy's 38 snubnose in my pocket.

Yeah, that would have been just a little bit scary!