Train Kills 23 Elk.
- Thread starter RobertR
- Start date
Schaaf
Well-known member
The vegetation is overgrown along the right of way and the wind from the trains clear a lot of snow to give easy access to food. The worse the winter the more animals hang out right on the tracks.
Path clear of deep snow for migrating.
Picture was taken in 2011 when we have record snow depths. IIRC, this picture was taken at least 30 days after the event.
Story from that event.
http://www.fieldandstream.com/blogs...d-taking-toll-montana-pronghorn-and-deer-pops
RobertR
Member
Road ways in particular the shoulder of highways usually melt first and take less effort to expose the grass and it can turn green faster from the heated up pavement. Railroad right of ways are similar because of the exposed ballast rock wich melts snow faster. As MTmiller said this is a travel path used by game. With the snow cover we have some of the whitetails are just beding in the barrow pit and grazing the shoulder of the road.
Poke 'Em
Well-known member
That particular winter the RR was about the only place the antelope could go that didn't have 3' of snow. When the snow melted in the spring, there were antelope carcasses in nearly every snowdrift. Getting hit by a train was probably the best thing that could have happened to most of them that winter.
chadv
Member
I used to pick up dead deer for the DOT in SD along a 50 mile stretch of interstate. One November day I picked up 72 deer after just picking up 40+ four days earlier. A combination of Rut and combining contributed to the high numbers. This doesn't include the ones that got wounded and made it past the fence line.
BuzzH
Well-known member
If this was in a state that cared about elk, I would feel bad.
In Montana its just 23 closer to getting that elk population within objective. The sooner MT gets to 96k elk, the sooner even the most dense hunters there realize what kind of hunting there will be with 96k elk on the landscape.
Then, maybe, just maybe there will be enough people that get involved in proper elk management and getting the EMP revised to something realistic.
Until then...nothing will change.
In Montana its just 23 closer to getting that elk population within objective. The sooner MT gets to 96k elk, the sooner even the most dense hunters there realize what kind of hunting there will be with 96k elk on the landscape.
Then, maybe, just maybe there will be enough people that get involved in proper elk management and getting the EMP revised to something realistic.
Until then...nothing will change.
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Laelkhunter
Well-known member
After being in Law Enforcement for 40 years, I have handled some pretty serious accidents on the Highways where the driver could not avoid hitting a deer or hog. The deer does quite a bit of damage to your car, and you still end up losing control and running off the road. For some reason they get startled at the approach of a vehicle and try to run across the road more times than running away from the road and into the brush.
Fatalities have occurred when the animal ends up sliding up the hood and crashing through the windshield (fortunately I didn't handle any of those).
I'm sure glad we don't have Elk in Louisiana only because the crashes would be much more severe.
