draggonlaady | A moment in the life...

Entry tags:

A moment in the life...

It's dusk. I'm crouched in the grass, right hand holding a bloody knife, left hand supporting the chin of the deer who's throat I just slit. Left knee braced against the doe's shoulder, stretching her neck so she'll bleed out faster. All quiet, if not exactly peaceful.

A mini-van, driven by a pleasant looking, middle-aged lady in lawyer's-office-style casual suit pulls up. The lady very politely asks if everything's ok, or if I need some help, and we have a brief chat about living in the country and deer and animals in general. The whole time, I'm still crouched on the doe.

Does anybody else have these totally weird moments where civilized life randomly overlaps with the necessary macabre?

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

I have dropped a log to crush the skull of a fawn who's back had been broken by a car hit.

I miss the night blooming jasmine, but little else about delivering newspapers in the dead of night on a rural route.

Hmm. I think that job would get amazingly mind-numbing in a very short time frame.

Thank you for stopping to help the fawn. Makes me sick to see people just drive past.

Well, that'd be a bizarre way to see off the day.

I do live a rather bizarre life

But would you ever trade it in for a normal one? That's the real question.

Ever? depends on the day. I could have a much more normal life and still be a vet...

It's possible, I guess, but I wouldn't want to exchange my oddity for all the gold in the known Universe.

A few months back, there was a moose that had been hit on the highway. Her hindquarters were nearly useless, but she had managed to drag herself quite some distance into the wheat fields. We had many, many calls to the humane society about why she hadn't been taken care of, and for each caller I could only tell them to call the Sheriff's office. Finally, shortly before dusk, I called the Sheriffs office myself to complain, not about the moose, but about the fact that I'm getting so many phone calls about the moose, and that I'm the one getting yelled at because nobody will go out there and take care of her. That finally got some action, and I had to go out and meet the deputy to show him where she was lying so he could shoot her. I felt really bad for the deputy, his rifle was woefully underpowered for large game, and it took 5 shots to finish her. When he came back up to the cars, he looked pretty drained.

You were very kind and very strong to do what you did for that doe. I'm not sure I could have done the same. So far, the few times I've been behind some idiot who hits an animal with his car and then doesn't stop, I've just gotten out, held the cat quietly in my arms, and they've died within a minute. Though I did have to kill a mouse once with a shovel after my cat had skinned him alive and then lost interest.

If it took 5 shots with any kind of rifle, he was shooting in the wrong place. Even a 22 is enough at close range. For future reference, tell him NOT to shoot between the eyes. (I'm assuming that's what he did--it's the most common mistake.) That just hits the sinuses. To hit the brain on almost any animal, draw an X from the eyes to the ears and hit in the center of the X.

No, you would have put her in the backseat of your car and brought her home :P (And I can't deny considering that myself.)

Unless you carry a fairly large knife in your car, it's unlikely you'd have really had the option of doing that--I can't imagine trying to saw into a large animal's neck with a little pocket knife :(. I was driving the work truck, so I had my necropsy knives with me, and I carry a hunting knife in my car specifically for that reason.

Well, he walked as close to her as he could without her starting to freak out, but she was lying down. He was kindof approaching her from the side, I'm not sure really what part exactly he was aiming for. But considering it was nearly dark by this point, making the scope pretty much useless, I think he was just trying to hit her somewhere. After that, she got up and tried to run, and it was a few moments of pandemonium, with him trying to put her down before she got over the top of the hill, then before she succeeded in trampling him. Once she was on the ground, he did walk up to her and shoot her twice in the head, which did needed done.

And the guy admitted he wasn't much of a hunter, didn't like hunting, hated shooting things, and didn't really have much experience doing so. So why did they dispatch him? I suspect he was the only one around a) near enough to get to the site before dark, and b) willing to go out of his way to do something unpleasant and not exactly in his job description.

And yes, had the cats I've had to scoop up survived more than a minute, I probably would have taken them home! Luckily, I've never come upon a deer. Might have trouble loading one into the car by myself. :) And come to think of it, the knife in my glove box is a MINI leatherman. I'd have trouble slitting the throat of a mouse!

I realize he was trying to help. And I DO appreciate that. I kinda feel like I'm picking on him...I'm not trying to run him down, or make him out to be a bad person.

But euthanasia means GOOD death.
Euthanasia by gunshot means ONE shot.

Shooting something 5 times is torturing it, no matter what the shooter's intentions are. If he didn't have better gun training than that, he shouldn't have been carrying a gun.

It's easy for me to criticize, since I wasn't there... but I don't hunt either, and I have very minimal training with guns (I would have a hell of a time trying to figure out how to load his rifle, for instance), and I know this.

The scope is ever only useful for long-range stuff, so the fact it was getting dark is irrelevant to use of the scope, when he was standing close to the moose anyway. Also... MagLight makes it not nearly as dark. Even if you don't have one in your car (and why don't you? they're much useful!), he should have had.

He should have known that a 22 (which is what he most likely had) wasn't going to go through the shoulder and into the heart very well on an animal that large, and he should never have tried such a shot, especially in an an animal that was laying down and therefore probably curled up with more muscle than normal bunched in front of the heart.

He should have just started from the front, got as close as possible before she started thrashing, waited for her to calm a bit, and shot her in the head to start with.

I will throw in a comment that I don't expect you guys to've known but may come in helpful in the future (like when you're trying to load that hypothetical injured deer into your backseat): if you blindfold damn near any large animal (deer, elk, big horn sheep, etc), they will lay still and let you do about anything. Approach from behind/above a down animal, throw a blanket or a jacket or something over her head, and they will usually just freeze. As long as you keep the blindfold on, you can then examine/manipulate them with minimal fuss or struggling. (I recommend still staying out of the way of the legs, because getting kicked, even by accident, hurts like hell.)

Of course, shooting a blindfolded animal means you probably get a hole in your blanket, but the blankets I carry in my car are for the dogs to sleep on anyway, so I don't really care about that.

I'd forgotten about the blindfold trick. Haven't been around large animals in years.

Have you ever met our shelter cat Joey? She was stepped on by a pot-bellied pig at about 5 weeks old, mostly paralyzing her hindquarters. She's almost 4 years old now, and does just great at the shelter. She can climb the scratching post, get into the window napper, on the desk, and despite having very little use of her back legs, that cat can MOVE! She even caught a hamster that excaped one night.

As for the moose, the whole thing was one lousy situation. Her hindquarters were not terribly useful, but they weren't completely dead, either. Very much like Joey. And also like Joey, that moose could still move quite enough to warrant a healthy dose of caution. Getting very close to her wasn't an option. I couldn't really tell how close the deputy got, as I was in my car up on the road, trying to keep headlights aimed and doing some good. And it was at the very edge of my high-beams limit too. Part of me wonders if we shouldn't have just left her alone. But then again, the real and natural world isn't the safe little world of the shelter where Joey lives. I'm surprised the coyotes didn't get her the first night, but they almost certainly would have the next night, as she was moving up the ridge closer to the treeline.

Yes, I will agree that it would have been much better if the responding deputy had more skills and experience in this matter. But considering that the sheriff's office had been recieving calls on this moose for over 24 hours, I'm just glad somebody finally responded at all!

I think I've met Joey, yeah. didn't remember her name...Just called her Scooter.

Yes, I know moose are big and dangerous...hence the approach from behind/above, where she can't kick or trample you. As I said, I'm not trying to run down the guy's intentions...I just think it was poorly done.

If the sheriff didn't have someone that was good for the job, they should have/could have called in someone who was. Why, for instance, didn't they have Fish and Wildlife (or whatever they're called in Idaho) there? It's more their job than Sheriff's anyway.

I am not really in a job that I should need to know this, but I could easily call more than half a dozen people who could come take care of something like that, and do it right... have a gun big enough to penetrate through the shoulder, know where to put the bullet, and could be there in a reasonable time-frame.
Which I guess says something about my family and raising...I just hope it's a good thing to say ;)

They did call Fish and Game. Nearest office is in Lewiston, and they wouldn't send someone up to take care of it. I'm not sure exactly what Fish and Game does consider to be their job. Pretty sure it doesn't include Moscow though. At least that's been my experience. As for me personally, yeah. I do know several people who could have done as well, quite possibly better at dispatching the injured moose. However, nobody is real keen on shooting something on private property, without permission, etc. Everything anyone ever will tell you about such things, and in fact what I have been instructed to tell people who call the humane society with wildlife concerns, is to call Fish and Game in Lewiston for wildlife complaints, or orphaned babies. In case of injured wildlife that simply needs shot, call the Latah County Sheriffs Dept. So for an entire day while I was at work, I told every person who called me to call the sheriff instead. After work, I drove out and checked on the moose myself. I then called the sheriff. Near dusk, the moose was still dragging herself along up the hill, so I called again. And pretty much told them that if they didn't send someone out to dispatch the moose, the Humane Society would hold them accountable for the animal's suffering. (What exactly does that mean? I have no idea, but it sounded good and it worked!)

I have since learned that the owner of the vet clinic I use is an avid hunter. Mostly elk, but if something like this happens again, I'll just call him. Screw the law.

Speaking of mooses, I haven't seen my own little pet moose, Oliver, in several months. He was living here in the trailer park for about 6 months, when his mother was killed in the highway last late summer. He was pretty young, but I have an apple tree that produces copious amounts of fruit all fall. He continued nosing them out of the snow beneath the tree most the winter too, as well as eating whatever he wanted out of everyone else's gardens as well. He was pretty fearless for a baby moose, I used to just step out on th front porch and talk to him while he was eating apples. I once scolded him for nibbling on my peach tree limbs too. He didn't listen. He even played with Toad. At any rate, I hope he's done ok for himself, though I suppose a trailer park full of children probably isn't a good place for a young bull moose. :)

If it's private property, that's actually much easier than public. Contact the owner of the land, and get his permission, and as long as you're not shooting at the highway or someone else's house, you can shoot all you want... Well, except for the whole inside city limits thing...

Fearless for a baby moose? honey, mooses (meese?) ARE fearless. :P

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

A moment in the life...

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject