Number One: Last week, we were separating caribou from each other. It is the rut, and males can only share an enclosure if one acknowledges the other is king, as it were. This appeared to be an impossible task for two of our males who continued battling over and over and over again. For the record, two full size males fighting can crash through gates, caribou can also 'climb' fences to get away. Apparently, so can females when "no means no" continues to be ignored. So...we did some rearranging and moved animals to different areas. One particularly excitable male went into solitary confinement (just kidding, he's in a huge enclosure, just on his own for a bit), one male moved from co-ed to an all-male enclosure and then we encouraged the females to go home again.
By and large, a lot of running around/patient walking/encouragement, but a very smooth process. Except for one small, memorable experience. The male we were moving to solitary had to walk past the all-male enclosure to get to his new home. Generally, we let animals find their own way, and he found his way back to the bull he had been fighting. The two went antler to antler through the fence in full force. It had been my job to encourage him to keep walking up the roadway, so I was about 2 feet away when this happened.
Wow! What an amazing show of force. Their strength and determination is unbelievable. Certainly not something I can do justice to in words.
I was very impressed I stood my ground, but frankly they could not have cared less that I was there and so long as I kept my distance we were a-ok. After a few moments of battling, we were able to take advantage of their momentary break and keep moving him forward. Moments later, he was where he needed to be and seemingly pretty happy to be able to eat something in peace.
No comments:
Post a Comment