“Do you have the cow’s scent?” Joshua Ames asked, sounding somewhat nervously.
“Around here I have plenty of scents that are those of cattle,” I answered slowly, “though if they diverge off into different groups, we’d have to do this one at a time.”
“Without horses or four wheelers, we don’t have much choice of that,” Joshua answered, “though, for the most part the cattle should remain together… provided they’ve been left to wander. If this cattle wrestler has driven them to a road or someplace where he could have trailers waiting… they’re obviously together and may be long gone by now.”
“Hopefully they have been left lose,” Officer Barnes spoke as I began to try and track the cattle.
They were mostly together at this spot where the fence had been cut, so the scent of cattle was fairly strong. I still caught the human scent here and there, like the thief had either walked among the cattle or behind them to drive them slowly. There was no other real scents to pick up. No horse, no four wheeler, no other vehicle. It made me wonder what the guy’s agenda was. If the cattle bolted on him, they would easily out run him on foot.
“How many cattle did you have in that field?” one of the two Animal Control officers asked as we began moving through a relatively gentle slope with long grass.
“Wasn’t it about twenty, pop?” Joshua asked his father.
“Twenty three,” Albert Ames clarified.
The scent trail seemed to move into slightly rougher territory. Albert Ames’ ranch sat in a sort of valley among the mountains that surrounded Columbia Falls, but it wasn’t that far away from them. As we continued, we began to move into the brush and slightly forested areas as we moved into the more mountainous regions. Tracking the cattle proved fairly easy, though it kept me on all fours and I frequently had to grimace just to truly identify everything.
“Something smell good to you?” the second animal control officer wondered.
I guessed he owned a cat, as the grimacing face I made periodically was one that all male cats, be they domestic house cats, or lions and tigers, to identify whether a female was in heat. Females might make the same “funny face” if they ever felt they needed to get more sense from something they smelled, but nothing I had ever read had made mention of females making that sort of grimace.
“Well… beef would be good to eat,” I answered, “but my nose is not geared to track prey by scent. I can identify things, and if I have to I can track things… but by evolution, tigers aren’t built to track things by scent. So I need to grimace every now and then to make sure I still have the scent.”
“Do you guys have a canine unit?” the first animal control officer asked to Officer Barnes.
“We don’t have time for that,” Joshua answered, “our cattle have been stolen and could be anywhere.”
“They could merely be loose and we’ll find them,” Officer Barnes answered.
“That could be worse,” Albert answered, “I know there is at least one Grizzly that lives out beyond my ranch in this area. That bear won’t hesitate to turn down an easy meal. We have to press on.”
“Has it ever given you any trouble?” the second animal control officer asked.
“There’s only one incident we had with him,” Albert spoke, “at least one that I could remember. Some virus went through the local deer and elk populations, and killed most of them off. We then had the hunting season, as normal, further reducing their populations. That left the bear mighty hungry, and it came into one pasture, knocking down the fence and took one cow. It ate a little and then carried off the carcass.”
“And you didn’t report it?” the second animal control officer gasped.
“All it killed was a cow,” Albert answered, “never threatened me, Joshua, my wife, Abby, or any person who worked for me. Reporting the bear wouldn’t have gotten my cow back… and to be honest it would ruin the natural beauty everyone says we ought to protect. If there were more deer here that year, that bear never would have caused trouble.”
We had now begun moving into a heavily forested area. The scent of pine mixed with the scent of the cattle. At present there was only one divergence. The human’s scent left the parade of cattle. The cattle continued on deeper into the forest, while he human’s scent veered off to the right into a ravine.
“I think we have an answer as to what the guy did with the cattle,” I announced.
“He let them wander?” Officer Barnes asked.
“It would appear that way,” I answered as I scented the area, “the man headed off down that ravine, and it doesn’t look like he rejoined the cattle. And we’ve gone sufficiently far enough from the pasture that they wouldn’t be inclined to return.”
“They still might stay together,” Albert spoke.
“Hopefully,” Joshua added.
“It’ll make figuring out the guy’s motive more difficult,” Officer Barnes grumbled, “not to mention that there is a major road… or at least a paved one in that direction. The ravine was likely his path of choice to the fence… but if he didn’t drive them there…”
“Why would he steal the cattle in the first place?” I mused and resumed tracking the cattle.
The cattle did stay together. It wasn’t super close, but they did seem to stay together. The trail meandered up one slope and then angled along it. Almost as if the cattle were wandering on a path parallel to the ranch’s fence line. Eventually they began to go downhill a little bit, and into an area where a small creek was.
It was there that I lost the scent, but my nose wasn’t as necessary. There were several hoof prints in the mud by the creek, as if the cattle were following it. I continued to follow along until I suddenly heard a “mooing” in the distance.
“I can hear them,” I spoke.
“Really?” Joshua asked, “where are they? How many?”
“It’s too far to tell how many, but they’re in this direction,” I answered as I pointed in the direction from which I heard the cattle’s vocalization, “it’s fairly faint right now, so we may have to go quite a bit.”
“Don’t worry, we’re good,” Albert Ames spoke, though sounding a little out of breath.
“Keep going, George,” Officer Barnes urged.
We then continued on quietly. I managed to pick up the scent of the cattle every now and then for spaces where the cattle weren’t wandering through the water. But predominately it was my ears that were guiding us to the cattle. We continued on until we came to rather steep incline going downward. The creek went in a different direction, but I regained the scent trail again. The cattle had left the creek and went down the incline.
The scent had concentrated again as it appeared that the cattle had gathered together to almost go in a single file line down the slope. The path take was wider then that, and it was doubtful that they went single file, but following behind them, I wasn’t in a position to really determine the order of the cattle.
We made it down the slope easily, and we soon could figure out why the cattle had headed down it and left the creek bed. It looked as though the forest was beginning to thin out. The cattle had found a clearing that man hadn’t made an were headed to it.
That all made sense. Joshua had said he was going to refil the water tanks for the cattle in their pasture. That was why they went to the creek bed after the thief had “freed” them from the pasture. They were thirsty and went for what would solve their thirst. Then they went in search of the habitat that cattle seemed to prefer. Open pasture. Their large size tended to count against them among trees against predators like bears and wolves. In the open, they might be able to see what was coming and flee in time… not to mention that there would be grass for them to eat in open pasture.
After a few moments, we approached the pasture where it appeared the cattle had moved to. It was another small pasture in a valley between peaks. The cattle had congregated in the center of it, and several of them were laying down.
“That appears to be them,” Albert spoke, “Good tracking Office Wayne.”
“We probably got lucky, sir,” I answered, “I’m no tracker.”
“Well… you tracked down most of them,” Joshua answered.
“Most?” the first of the two Animal Control officers asked.
“I can only see fifteen there,” Joshua answered, “the pasture had twenty three.”
“We’ll need to get this lot back to our land,” Albert sighed, “then we can worry about the rest.”
Joshua nodded, “I’ll go back for a horse or two. We’ll need them to move the cattle back up he slope and to our land. Moving them on foot won’t be easy.”
“We’ll go with you,” the two animal control officers spoke, “just in case this bear that’s out here is out and about. Officers Wayne and Barnes can keep an eye on this lot.”
I glanced back to watch them going. As they disappeared up the slope again, I turned back to look at the heard.
“I’m going to look around the edge,” I spoke, “see if I can find the eight missing ones.”
“Be careful,” Officer Barnes called after me as I began to walk along the edge of the clearing, “you may be big, but a Grizzly is still bigger. And meaner!”
“I’ll try,” I answered and continued on.
I continued on along the edge of the clearing. In the center of the clearing I could see the fifteen cattle that we had first spotted. I soon spotted about seven more closer to the edge of the clearing. One was grazing, one was scratching its side against a tree and the rest of them were laying down. That still left one unaccounted for. Unfortunately, I soon found out what happened to it.
Halfway along the edge of the clearing there was a spot where a lot of grass was bent down, as if something large had been here. There was also a lot of blood in the area, and then followed into another area where the cow was apparently dragged away. It was drug into forest, bending a few small saplings in the process. There was also a different scent in the area. One that didn’t match my memory for the scents of humans, cattle, Mountain Lions, or Molly. It had to be the Grizzly that lived in this area.
“Bear got it,” I grumbled in a low voice and continued on.
The cattle near the edge of the clearing moved slowly back toward the center when I went by them. I found no other sign of trouble around the rest of the clearing. I found Albert quietly talking with Officer Barnes as I returned.
“Find anything?” Officer Barnes asked.
“Your heard had all come here together,” I spoke, mostly to Albert Ames, “seven of the others were on the other edge of the clearing. Either hidden by the long grass or simply hidden by the other cattle that were between us and then. The twenty third cow, however, is bear food.”
“Damn,” Albert said simply.
“We’ll tell the animal control officers when they return,” Officer Banes told them, “they and George will hunt down the bear.”
“Don’t waste your time,” Albert answered, “it didn’t come onto my ranch an kill a cow. A cow wandered into its hunting grounds and got itself killed. Killing the bear won’t get my cow back… and I can’t profit of it if it isn’t killed in a slaughter house.”
“You can’t make money off the meat?” I asked.
“Not under these conditions,” Albert replied, “it could have maggots, parasites, and all sorts of bacteria in it. Best to let the bear have it.”
“But the law…” Officer Barnes protested, “It could become accustomed to your cattle and if it’s been on your ranch before, it may return.”
“We’ll deal with that if and when it happens,” Albert answered, “the bear only did what a bear does. And cattle are notoriously dumb. George here walked around their herd in plain sight. And possibly close to some of them, if they’re on the other side. The most logical thing would have been to move further away from a predator.”
“Some deer species in Asia and antelope species in Africa are known for actually approaching predators making an alarm call,” I commented, “either a bark or snort or something like that. It‘s generally done to let the predator know that it doesn‘t have surprise on its side… and since they don‘t have human dexterity, charging into a deer‘s antlers or an antelope‘s horns would be extremely risky and potentially lethal for the predator.”
“They’re also faster and more fleet of foot,” Albert shrugged it off, “and we’ve bred the natural defenses out of domestic cattle. Look to the Bison, Cape Buffalo, Wild Water Buffalo, and Gaur to see the behavior of cattle that know how to defend themselves. We’ve bread that OUT of domestic cattle.”
“Except for rodeo bulls,” Officer Barnes countered.
“They’re still tame compared to wild cattle,” Albert dismissed it, “let the bear have its victory. If there is any compensation to be had, I want the man who cut my fence to pay it. Not that bear.”