Animals die all the time. So why don't we see more of their remains in the forest?
Welcome to this week's edition of Something Wild. I'm Rosemary Conroy for the Society for the Protection of New Hampshire Forests.
Now this may seem like an odd question, but how come you hardly ever come upon dead things in the wilds of New Hampshire? I spend a reasonable amount of time tramping around the woods, and rarely do I ever come upon a bone or antler.
Animals die all the time, right? Something like 50 percent of the young of each breeding season is said to die before their first birthday. You'd think there'd be some signs left over.
Out west, especially in the national parks, where you're not allowed by law to remove anything, you find skulls and antlers and bones everywhere.
Of course, we have at least one major factor that western landscapes don't have here in abundance - moisture. Extremely dry or cold environments slow the natural process of decomposition, which explains why you see so many elk parts laying around Yellowstone, for example. (Maybe that's where the expression "bone dry" comes from.)
Here we have a lot more rain and less extreme temperatures, which helps accelerate the breaking down of tissues and bones. We also have a healthy population of insects and rodents, which play a big role in decomposition as well. Folks who like to look for shed deer antlers each winter can tell you it's hard to find one around here that's not been nibbled on by a mouse.
It's kind of cool coming upon an old deer bone, as weird as that may sound. It reminds me, anyway, of how much life is fueled by death in nature. Prey feeds predator and all the scavengers who come after. The fallen animal's blood enriches the ground, where new grass springs up, to sustain the next generation.
So consider yourself lucky if you do find an old bone in the woods. Each one not only contains an interesting biology lesson, but a philosophy one, too!
Something Wild is a joint production of New Hampshire Audubon, NHPR and the Society for the Protection of New Hampshire Forests.
For Something Wild, I'm Rosemary Conroy.
