Useless Amateur Wildlife Reconaissance (or just bored to tears)
08-21-2007, 09:35 PM
#1
Thread Starter
Join Date: Dec 2004
Location: Montana
Posts: 586
Useless Amateur Wildlife Reconaissance (or just bored to tears)
Just in case anyone's interested - On a fewof my many trips on I-25 /I-90 from Billings to Denver I count antelope. Usually I just count from Cheyenne to Sheridan, 300 miles.
Results - in June I counted 1700 head, on my side of the car only, (wife doesn't like my driving), and only within shooting range, guesstimating 1/4 mile from the road. I figure I see half of them on my side of the rises and there are just as many behind the rises. That gives me 3400 in 75 square miles, or45 per square mile. The most I saw in one linear mile were 75, the least was 0. There were many 0's. 45 per sq mile seems like awfully good odds!
Yesterday I counted 450 head. I can't figure out where they go, but I understand that they do migrate. This drive is hot or cold and I can't figure out when I will get great results or bad.
Yesterday was disappointing BUT I saw the biggest buck I have ever seen 50 yd from the road near Sheridan. He looked like all horn and jet black face. Heavy horned, his diggers were well above his ear tips and he curled over so far and so symmetrically I would have thought some artist made him up. Sorry I couldn't get photos.
Every time I do this, the countdrops to zero right at the Montana border. I am guessing that is related to unregulated hunting on the MT Crow reservation that shares the state border. Not a judgement, just a guess, and I don't know the reservation hunting regs. All I know is that everyone I tell this to does their own road count and agree that the antelope almost disappear at the Montana border on I-90, like they knew where it was.
For what it's worth.
Results - in June I counted 1700 head, on my side of the car only, (wife doesn't like my driving), and only within shooting range, guesstimating 1/4 mile from the road. I figure I see half of them on my side of the rises and there are just as many behind the rises. That gives me 3400 in 75 square miles, or45 per square mile. The most I saw in one linear mile were 75, the least was 0. There were many 0's. 45 per sq mile seems like awfully good odds!
Yesterday I counted 450 head. I can't figure out where they go, but I understand that they do migrate. This drive is hot or cold and I can't figure out when I will get great results or bad.
Yesterday was disappointing BUT I saw the biggest buck I have ever seen 50 yd from the road near Sheridan. He looked like all horn and jet black face. Heavy horned, his diggers were well above his ear tips and he curled over so far and so symmetrically I would have thought some artist made him up. Sorry I couldn't get photos.
Every time I do this, the countdrops to zero right at the Montana border. I am guessing that is related to unregulated hunting on the MT Crow reservation that shares the state border. Not a judgement, just a guess, and I don't know the reservation hunting regs. All I know is that everyone I tell this to does their own road count and agree that the antelope almost disappear at the Montana border on I-90, like they knew where it was.
For what it's worth.
08-22-2007, 08:06 AM
#2
Nontypical Buck
Join Date: Dec 2006
Location: Lubbock, Texas
Posts: 1,401
RE: Useless Amateur Wildlife Reconaissance (or just bored to tears)
They are usually pretty thick right around Douglas. I've never actually counted them, that would take some effort. We drove that strech during the daylight coming back to Texas around the first of August and I would guess there were somewhere in the middle of your 2 counts. Probably between 750 and 1,000. I know within 10 miles before and after Douglas there was 250 or so. I wasn't strictly looking at goats within a 1/4 mile of the road though, some of the ones I saw were probably closer to 1/2 mile off the interstate.
If you want to see a LOT of goats from the road, drive from Douglas to Gillette!
If you want to see a LOT of goats from the road, drive from Douglas to Gillette!
