For Those Who Hunt the Wounded Down .

K

Kevin the grey

Joined
Aug 26, 2005
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Aside from being the title of a good Canadian crime drama of years ago it brings to mind the alertness of animals . Sure I know we have all seen the hapless fox or deer totally unaware of us and gallumping around without a care in the world .For the most part they are aware of every sound . At least at the level of filtering out prey from predator . I know they have superior abilities in some respects . There is also the fact that they live for a living . Kinda helps them focus in on the issue . I would like to cultivate the abilty/s . I guess hunting or being hunted would hone them . I wonder if there is any other way .
 
It is interesting and time well spent to observe feral cats.

Take a walk and tune in to your ears and your nose. They have a lot to tell us.

Even animals filter perceptions, and that can be a weakness for them. However, some filtering is probably required. It's good to turn off some filters every once in a while though.

A good question and one I have considered many times. I don't have any answers or advice, the above just being some of my random thoughts.
 
Filtering perceptions implies thought above the basic level of eat or be eaten . I would guess this would come through experience and free time to question . Its hard to go "Well maybe" when you are busy not dying . I wonder what their perceptions would be ?

Turning off the filters is an interesting idea as well . Getting back to the basics . Not being so much us . Being more that which surrounds us . The sound of the rain and what is not rain . The smell of the earth and that which is not earth . I may not be expressing it well as this implies filtering as well .
 
Its a fun new hobby. Hunting is old hat. Get into being hunted. I like it.
 
Kevin the grey said:
The only time I like being hunted is by women in bars .
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Three of us were bar-hopping downtown New York one night and decided it was time to take a leak. We stepped into the next bar we came to and asked the bartender, Where's the men's room?

Everyone in the place turned to stare at us. It was a lesbian bar.
 
Kevin, I'm sure you already know what a thrill tracking and stalking is. It's fun to see just what level you can take it to. I once stalked a wildcat who was stalking a squirrel. Could have easily enough killed either one or both, but it was hugely rewarding just to watch a predator taking prey in a natural setting. When the bobcat put the grab on that squirrel, I was less than 20 yards away. With the squirrel clamped firmly in it's jaws, that cat turned and looked straight at me. Registering no alarm or concern, he calmly went along his way, carrying his still twitching dinner. I was down wind and had camouflaged human odors, I was also cammied up and behind some good natural cover. That he showed no reaction tells me he had no clue as to what I was, but, that he deliberately turned and looked straight at where I was concealed tells me he sure enough sensed something was amiss. Like Howard pointed out, cats are interesting indeed.

Sarge
 
Sounds like he was hungry enough to risk it. Great story.
 
Sarge It is interesting how aware animals are as to whether the other animal is hunting or not . I think that might come down to smell and stance . Still it is quite the feat to be able to see predators in the forest . I would love to be that stealthy . Last week I did see two foxes about that distance from me . They were concentrating on each other and I was in a tree stand Practicing .
One of the most interesting 3D targets made is a Bob-cat with a squirrel in its mouth . The squirrel is not quite well defined enough . Kinda glopped together in its mouth . I might get one one day and artist up the squirrel a bit .

S
 
Kevin, we've got several mountain lions on the Fort Hood training ranges (Fort Hood's total land area comes in at around 332 square miles). The cats are part of a species reintroduction project, and they're so dang elusive the naturalists have to use motion detectors and night vision cameras to monitor them. Now this next bit is going to sound like a tall tale, one of the cougars is black. Cougars have long been killed off in this area, and the biologists were keen to keep their reintroduction project quiet and away from public scrutiny, for fear the cats will be "interfered with". So, imagine what resulted when the black cougar was spotted by folks motoring down desolate country back roads in the dead of night. You got it, the "Ghost Cat of Gatesville", central Texas' very own "monster" story. An enormous black cat that stalks the moonlit countryside in search of a hapless victim. I kind of like that. There's something in the human pysche always willing to believe in the presence of monsters.

Sarge
 
Sylvrfalcn said:
Kevin, we've got several mountain lions on the Fort Hood There's something in the human pysche always willing to believe in the presence of monsters.

Sarge
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Dark alley , Nasty with a Ballpeen hammer . (Need I say more ?) L:O:L

Sarge For there to be monsters they must be monstrous . As we both know there are monstrous things in the world . Are there not monsters ?
 
2 reminiscences

A couple of years ago I backpacked into a remote lake and was trout fishing in the early morning,. Well, not exactly as I had laid my rod upon the bank and was watching the gnats fly over the water, and the dimples made by the trout. Every once in a while a dragonfly would fly by, eating gnats. I was watching one dragonfly, and I wondered if the trout were feeding on the little gnats or the dragonflies. Just then a trout erupted from the water, seized the dragonfly I was watching, and disappeared. The whole event just took a fraction of a second, and the dragonfly never had a clue.

Back when my son was smaller, I was out with him on an early hunt along an old abandoned Forest Service road. It had been obstructed so vehicles could not use it. The terrain was steep, and we were walking on the hill side of the road. The wind was up the hill and we couldn’t see over the edge from where we were. I smelled an animal smell and motioned my son to be quiet. Then I signed to him to carefully go over to the edge. There were two does there. It’s not the only time I’ve scented game but it’s the only time I’ve had a witness. My son’s eyes (or should I say nostrils) were opened a little that day.
 
There's a reef some miles off shore from south Miami that was a favorite hangout for a critter everybody referred to as "Night Train Charlie". Hammerhead shark, estimated around 14 foot in length, never harmed a soul that I know of, but the mere sight of him in that clear Caribbean water would make your blood run cold. Monsters? Yeah, there's monsters out there. :D

Sarge

Hmmm, "Nasty, in a dark alley, with a ball peen hammer", you could be on to something Kevin, the Cantina's own version of the board game "Clue" ;)
 
Here in Washington State, we have a small population of grizzlies in the North Cascades. Although we have 15 to 20 credible sightings per year, numerous unmistakeable track records (one record on a streambank very near my house), we have no photographs yet to my knowledge. This population has remained exceptionally elusive, although not far from Seattle.

Also, I once was watching a very large male black bear in Olympic National Park of Washington State (big enough to look like a monster to those nearby). It was just after daybreak. I was on a ridge a couple hundred yards above, no breeze yet. The bear was moving along slowly, feeding on forbs in a meadow below. It was Saturday morning and we were near a popular Park destination, so about 7 in the morning, trucks and a few cars would wind up the road just below the meadow one-by-one. I remember thinking that the drivers would all get a great chance to see this impressive big boy who was in plain view just a few dozen feet away. However, during the next 90 minutes, the bear, without lifting his head or seemingly even taking notice of the vehicles, would casually work behind one of the low mountain hemlocks or a clump of bushes which dotted the meadow -- just in time to disappear from view to the trucks and autos below. Nobody else spotted him before he strolled back into cover along a stream, although he was in the open in plain view most of the time just 3 or 4car lengths away from the road.
 
Once, while trying to get a tan, I watched ants in a column as they followed a course. Suddenly a lizard dashed out, grabbed a few ants with quick snaps, and seeing the easy pickings, he kept lapping up ants.

Moments later a feral cat had the squriming lizard in its mouth as he trotted away with HIS easy meal.

I felt a passing temptation to attack the cat, but didn't want to take a position in the food chain myself.

I don't wonder what would have eaten me, but rather would have eaten IT.

Somebody eats somebody else. I bet I'm not the only one who's seen a hawk flying away with a snake.


Mike
 
It’s not the only time I’ve scented game but it’s the only time I’ve had a witness. My son’s eyes (or should I say nostrils) were opened a little that day
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Good stories. I've actually gotten pretty good at scenting animals and ID'ing by scent over the years, as a wildlife biologist. You probably know, most mammals have scent glands (and/or characteristic urine or scat smells) and are actively pumping out scent pretty frequently. Birds sing, mammals scent. Both are "shouting" to their kind all the time in their own ways. Kind of ironic in a way that most people can't "hear" this when it's so "loud" to them. This is something I've just kinda tuned in to in the last 10 years or so.
 
i live with two of natures fastest predators. yesterday morning there was a fox in the pasture across the main road where i normally let them frolic & do their zoomies.

the fox saw us across the road & crouched down, the hounds saw the fox & instantly they were predators, focussed sharply on the prey, like a light switch being flipped they were no longer my cuddly lap doggies, but the 45 mph bolts of toothed lightening they really are. cars & trucks would not have even been noticed, and weren't. but for me & their tight leashes they would have been squished.

when the cars were past we went across to the field & the fox was hidden behind the newly cut hay lanes that were ready for bailing. the dogs knew, they had weapons lock & when i unclipped their leads the fox had had about a 200 yd head start to the fence about 50 yards away. he just made it. 140 lbs of the fastest accelerating land animals in the UK had shown why they were.

if i had not held them to give the fox a chance, he would have been history. when they came back from the fence, they were my cuddly doggies again. the switch had been flipped back.

i am their pack leader, and it's a privledge i hold dear & with gratitude and respect, they are wolves at heart after all, but willing to accept us odd primates into their society in spite of that, as long as we earn their respect instead of demanding it.
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If they don't want me to eat animals - why do they make them out of MEAT?
 
Hearing? If you haven't trashed it with man-made sound, your hearing is probably better than you think it is. Have a baby in the house and you will become acutely aware of small noises unique to it. Take your kids to a playground and you may find that you can hear THEIR voices in the din.

Scenting? This is harder, but if you can avoid the harsher odors, you may find you become aware of the more subtle scents. A few are even more subtle. Some years ago, Psychology Today had an article suggesting how our body odors are perceived as pleasant and sexy to another person is a highly selective process. We usually smell best to a person whose genetically based immunity to disease differs most from our own. This could benefit you in the long run, making for stronger, healthier children.

Women who live together, in a house or a dormitory, often find that their menstrual cycles start to coincide. This has been attributed to pheromone production, scents of which the women are unaware.

I can't find it now, but in another study, the unnoticed scent of a woman menstruating, and that of a dried perspiration on a man were found to be stimulating to their opposite genders.

A fact I picked up from the days I taught photojournalism is that our pupils enlarge when we are interested or sexually aroused. Chinese jade merchants were known to use this unconscious change to encourage the selection of specific jewelry; Italian woman were known to take a narcotic which enlarged their pupils to make them appear more sensual: "belladonna."

Even today, I'd bet that a lot of advertising of women, aimed at men, have air-brushed pupils, and swollen or "pouty" lips to stimulate interest. I used examples to help my students focus on what they were seeing--sights that went past what Howard referred to as "filters," and went to the instinctual response of the human animal.

There's more, but try having a purposeless walk in the woods, plains, whatever...away from the madding crowd...walk slowly and look, listen, and feel. A lot of the senses that have been "filtered" are still intact and as you become aware of them, you become aware.

Or go turkey hunting...with or without a gun...just lean back against a tree and be still... the woods becomes alive, sounds become more vivid, distinctive, and remarkable as you hear the world you are in.

When the planes were grounded after 9/11, the silence in the skies was intimidating, even out here where gawd lost his sandals.


Be well and safe.
 
Just yesterday I had the priviledge of watching a vixen moving her kits to a new den. Our neighborhood is called Fox Cliff for good reason :D
 
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