Full day with elk counting and hunters dinner
Last Saturday, all hunting teams in Eckeroe performs a survey of the number of elks in the municipality, this is done simultaneously throughout Aaland Island to get an idea of how many elk there are in total.
The Åland Provincial Government has requested this and they usually try to have such an estimate done every three years. But it is now six years since last because of the (no) snow situation previous years.
The day started by driving down roads in the area to see if any animal had crossed them. In Storby there were no fresh tracks anyway. Then everyone is heading out into the forest to see if there are any elk and/or elk tracks on our hunting grounds.
In the Storby, the village furthest to wet on Åland, we start out in the south, three men, me east of the others. The pace is quite slow partly because of the crust under the snow that sometimes carries the weight and sometimes not. The other part is that you cannot just go straight to the North through the area but also need to cross in east-west direction.
Many tracks from small game (hare, squirrel, deer) almost everywhere but no larger tracks until after about twenty five minutes. Ok, this is first elk track I recon and go closer to check it out. But it is another animal that made the track and I have never seen a similar track earlier in our forest.
They are reminiscent of dog tracks but are in the middle of the forest, several kilometers from the nearest settlement. The length of the groove is about ten centimeters (the glove beside is a size 10). Kennet, the guy who walks about one kilometer west of me has observed a similar track and he assumes it may be a lynx. I do not think it resembles tracks from a cat but since I do not know how tracks from lynx looks like that, I believe him.
One and a half hours later I arrive at a cutting surface on the eastern side of the Vik plain where I see three eagles and four ravens circling in the northern part of the gap.
My thought is that there might be an elk that have died for some reason, so I walk in that direction. The eagles are noticeably annoyed by my presence but disappear when I'm about halfway out on the gap. The ravens awaits a little longer before they also decide to move.
It feels a bit like looking for a needle in a haystack, but I move further and further north to finally reach the edge between the surface and the old forest. Suddenly I see large tracks, similar to those I saw earlier.
I am turning towards west and there lays a deer that has been "slaughtered". Large parts of the animal are missing and I find it hard to believe that it's only the eagles who made this happen. Part of the stomach content are a few meters from the animal and, based on what I see, I estimate that the deer has been killed for no more than one to two days ago. No snow or frost frost covers any part of the animal.
Elk counting continues and I change area to one which is about five kilometers further east. Here again I encounter a similar track and here the impression is almost perfect.
Looking on internet, wolf tracks are those most like this. The Elk counting is finalized and we gather afterwards to compile the data. A total of 32 elks, which is about what we estimated that was in our area at the end of hunting season. Two more hunters had seen the odd tracks and we agreed that they had to be from a wolf.
The hunters dinner in the evening together with our wives/significant others became a successful event with good food and nice company and we also had something extra to discuss about!
Elk tracks can be distinct and easy to follow as in the movie below, but not always. Here we also see tracks from a hare, a bit into the film and also a deer track that goes parallel with the two elk tracks just before we reach the gully.
The Åland Provincial Government has requested this and they usually try to have such an estimate done every three years. But it is now six years since last because of the (no) snow situation previous years.
The day started by driving down roads in the area to see if any animal had crossed them. In Storby there were no fresh tracks anyway. Then everyone is heading out into the forest to see if there are any elk and/or elk tracks on our hunting grounds.
In the Storby, the village furthest to wet on Åland, we start out in the south, three men, me east of the others. The pace is quite slow partly because of the crust under the snow that sometimes carries the weight and sometimes not. The other part is that you cannot just go straight to the North through the area but also need to cross in east-west direction.
Many tracks from small game (hare, squirrel, deer) almost everywhere but no larger tracks until after about twenty five minutes. Ok, this is first elk track I recon and go closer to check it out. But it is another animal that made the track and I have never seen a similar track earlier in our forest.
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| Tracks in the forest |
One and a half hours later I arrive at a cutting surface on the eastern side of the Vik plain where I see three eagles and four ravens circling in the northern part of the gap.
My thought is that there might be an elk that have died for some reason, so I walk in that direction. The eagles are noticeably annoyed by my presence but disappear when I'm about halfway out on the gap. The ravens awaits a little longer before they also decide to move.
It feels a bit like looking for a needle in a haystack, but I move further and further north to finally reach the edge between the surface and the old forest. Suddenly I see large tracks, similar to those I saw earlier.
Elk counting continues and I change area to one which is about five kilometers further east. Here again I encounter a similar track and here the impression is almost perfect.
The hunters dinner in the evening together with our wives/significant others became a successful event with good food and nice company and we also had something extra to discuss about!
Elk tracks can be distinct and easy to follow as in the movie below, but not always. Here we also see tracks from a hare, a bit into the film and also a deer track that goes parallel with the two elk tracks just before we reach the gully.
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