[Carry_Okie]

Almost 14,000 years later, there is no way to tell how many hits it took to bring the beast to the ground near the coast of present-day Washington state.

Sigh. Academics.

It took only one stab with a spear to kill even a mastodon, and it involved a technique that was both reliable and relatively easy. When humans arrived, the animals had no concept for them as a threat. A hunter could simply walk right up, gut-stick it. Then just follow the meal until it drops. The animal would die of peritonitis in about three days. That is why so many carcasses are found near bogs. The animals would head to water to relieve the fever.

How do I know that? I learned it from Dr. Charles Kay, a researcher at Utah State and one hell of a big game hunter. He learned of the method from local tribesmen while hunting in Africa. His book, Wilderness & Political Ecology: Aboriginal Influences and the Original State of Nature, discusses this very issue at great length in a chapter entitled: False Gods, Ecological Myths, and Biological Reality. Humans can be amazingly proficient hunters.

[Dusty Road]

I agree with the good Doctor on that one but would like to add a little more to it. Having witnessed the fact that a wounded or sick animal will nearly always go to water does help explain the high amount of remains around old bog’s, I have another that I’ve also witnessed. As everybody knows the drought in Texas last year was a bad one, we lost 7 out of nine big ponds, as they dried up the banks became mud traps for the cows, deer and hog’s. We lost close to 80 cows from being stuck in the mud, well over 120 deer and at least 30 feral hog’s. We also had several coyotes and other predators get stuck in the mud trying to feed on the remains.
Now with the recent rains a wave of silt has washed into the ponds covering most of the bones and what hasn’t been covered eventually get pushed down into the mud by cows coming to water at the edge.

[1010RD]

He’s a brilliant thinker and lecturer.

Predator-Mediated Competition: http://www.skinnymoose.com/bbb/2010/07/25/dr-charles-e-kay-predator-mediated-competition/

Here’s two videos on the liberal ecological disaster of wolf introduction:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TQ2g8BpYODU

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FAXq9YxjiY4&feature=relmfu