Antelope Winter Kill Pics

[Nemont]

The winter has been brutal in North East Montana. Now that the snow has all gone all the winter kill is now visible. If you are planning on Hunting Montana antelope you may want to consider region 7.

Little Nemont

This is just a sample. I could post a bunch more but you get the point

Nemont

 

[Elkhunter]

Not a pretty sight.

 

[SJ]

You can imagine how bad it would be if we didn't hunt them.

 

[Nemont]

A few survivors

 

[ELKCHSR]

My goodness...
Watching the weather reports, one wouldn't have thought it would have been that bad...

 

[pa mt man]

What killed them? Cold or starvation. Don't know anything about antelope.don

 

[Murf]

I wonder why the coyotes haven't eaten more of the dead antelope. It appears that only one of the carcasses has been gnawed on.

 

[Washington Hunter]

What killed them? Cold or starvation. Don't know anything about antelope.don

I'd say a combination of both, but the main factor was probably starvation. With adequate food I think they would be able to withstand the cold. I don't see much sagebrush in those pictures, and from what I've read on antelope, sagebrush is what keeps them alive through the winter. So maybe the lack of sagebrush has something to do with it. Maybe we can blame the welfare ranchers.

 

[Nemont]

We had extreme winter in the Northeast corner. Kind of everything Havre and east and then North of Missouri river. Here are some pics of snow accumulation, over 67 inches of total snowfall. Couple that with sevre cold for weeks on and the speed goats just can't hack it.


http://www.kltz.com/snow.html

Nemont

 

[BlackTimber]

Oh yea, don't kill these critters by hunting them. Let them be, It's cruel to hunt and kill them. It's much better for mother nature to do it.

*%&#) them activists!!!!

Thats too bad. I hate to see it.

 

[iminrut]

I'm not to familiar with your area, but I'm suspecting that the foriage is less than plentiful for quite some area during the winter........the reason I say this, is that the antelope here in sw North Dakota will migrate a over a 100 miles during the bad months, just to find good feeding grounds, and then migrate back again in the spring.......

In some of the pics you can tell there's not much for "groceries" there....Overgrazing and overpopulation of cattle will ruin alot of good ground quick......but then in some of the other pics, there appears to be alot of good grass yet............it's sad to see so many animals not making it, one can only hope that their numbers could absorb the fall off....

 

[Murf]

I would suspect your winter was much like that in SW Sask. An early heavy snow which just didn't leave. Up here many antelope can be trapped by barded wire fences when the snow blocks the space between the bottom strand and the ground. We had about 18 inches of the white stuff in Oct. I wish someone would teach the speed goats top jump fences rather thantrying to slide under. I notice fences in several of your pics and wonder if that explains the die off???

 

[Jack O'Conner]

Old timers I knew when I was a kid told me much about antelope. They said antelope thrived during the era before buffalo were nearly wiped out. 'Lopes stayed with the buffalo herds for protection from the icy winds and to feed where bison plowed through waist high snow.

What occurs now goes like this: deep snow makes it difficult to find food. High winds blow snow away in some areas making forbs available. But these sub-zero winds kill the 'lopes as they feed. When air temp. is minus zero, then add a factor for wind, and 'lopes freeze in short time.

Last Novemeber on first day of West River Prairie Deer season it was -2 F. Wind was howling straight out of the north. Exposed skin felt like it was burnt. But mulies were easy to find. They were bedded in a shelter belt down along a creek bottom to evade the freezing wind.
Jack