Tough Winter for the Beasts

[James M]

Well, I was up at the woods on Saturday and driving in found the remains of a Roe leg mostly eaten, then later found a lovely Roe Doe curled up dead on the bottom track. I thought she was alive and ruminating when I saw her from a distance but got closer and she didn't move.

She had all her legs (hoped it was a RTA casuality, seems it was natural), so that's two animals we've lost.

She could only have been dead an hour as her stomach wasn't distended, beautiful animal, lovely condition, nice thick dark winter coat but not a lot of fat to be felt under the skin, no obvious signs of disease, but I didn't have the proper gear with me to do a post mortem. No wear on her teeth at all, even for a young one, she must have had very little to eat.

I moved her off to the side for the foxes and buzzards to deal with.

Looked like she'd just lain down curled up and died. Small, so a new one from last May. We've a lot of deer, shows how bad things get for them and how competition kills off the smaller/weaker ones when it's been snowing so much up here in the north and food is scarce. Can't have been a nice end for her.

I took some photos but don't have anyway of posting them.

Very sad.

[John H]

Yes thats very sad, glad you didn't post the photos.

[jillybean]

Hi James.

I noticed you said "Proper gear to do a post mortem." Are you an enthusiastic field butcher or a pathologist or perhaps a vet? please dont think me nosey, but ive had this little image of a man in a wood with a portable operating table and an assistant wearing a mask, holding a torch, calling "Forceps" and "Scalpel" since I read your piece and I cant rid myself of this mental image. please help

[tracy]

That made me laugh out loud Jillbean! What a great picture ;-)

[James M]

I'm an occcasional stalker to keep the numbers down. When you shoot a deer you go through a number of health checks as you clean it - lymph nodes, organ condition etc to make sure it doesn't have any nasty/notifiable diseases - TB, F+M, Warble Fly, flukes, pregnancy in the case of Roe Does this time of year, etc.

It's not a hard job but I didn't have my rubber gloves, disinfectant, sharp knife, gambrel and so on. You need to take care of youself when doing things like that.

If you have e.g. TB on your patch you need to notifiy the Divisional Vet Inspector by law and you don't want an infected carcass laying around. It wasn't out of curiosity, it would have been good to know the cause of death was just malnutitrion/exposure, RTA. - I think that's all it was.

An assistant would be good! As would an operating table, but in reality it's a head torch on your own in the woods at night with the snow freezing you/midges having orgasms because of the smell of blood, with the animal hanging from a tree.

My gralloching knife is as sharp as a scalpel though. It's fair to say I don't approach that bit with enthusiasm.

Cheers.

[RichardKing]

James

We need you stalkers.

Since we wiped out the bears & the wolves who kept their numbers under controll they are getting out of hand.

[James M]

I'm seeing huge numbers of droppings, and from large mature animals as well - despite the bad weather. I think now the Does have implanted they have been chasing away last years young to fend for themselves and it was a casualty of that I found.

[jillybean]

Its done no good for my mental imagery, Im now getting a shadowy carcass,crucified in a tree.pouring blood, steaming in a cloud of frenzied midges backlit by a blue moon with the silhouette of James in rubber gloves and head torch with a gralloching knife in his teeth and a gambrol stuck in his surgeons cap standing in a huge pile of droppings. Brave man James, I take my hat off to you

[James M]

Just hold that image - that's spot on. It's why I don't do it that often.

But it's like St Peter's crucifixion - upside down.