Facing the Sky

When I find dead animals, I like to conduct some detective work – I try to find the why and the how, and I like to solve mysteries. Occasionally, though, I encounter a scene for which I can offer no suitable explanation, at least not without a whole lot of conjecture and guesswork. In these situations, all I can do is take photographs and wonder – how did this come to be? What series of events – many or few – led up to this moment?

Last weekend, I came across a mysterious scene, and I left with more questions than answers. The rocky shoreline near the Presque Isle Park breakwall is, without fail, a place to find gull corpses; I wasn't prepared, however, to discover one peacefully facing the sky, head raised to the heavens in what looked like a postmortem act of sun worship.

 

It was an eerie sight. The herring gull was uncanny in appearance, seeming neither alive nor dead, looking more like taxidermy than anything else. The body was in rigor, the eyes were still wet, and the feathers were warm, thanks to the sun.

 

One can only guess how this came to be. Throughout my walks and travels, I've seen a great number of dead animals; each has been unique in appearance, but never have I seen one posed as such. Was a person responsible? Did the gull simply die while facing the sky?

 

Now, several days later, the appearance of this gull has most certainly changed – if it's even still there. I feel lucky to have seen it when I did; it's a reminder that death and decomposition can be strange and mysterious. The dead animals that we do see offer only a brief glimpse into the long process of decay, and sometimes, it can take on forms unexpected and bizarre.

Book Review: Bernd Heinrich's Life Everlasting

I'd like to start featuring reviews of books relevant to this project, perhaps as a monthly or bi-monthly affair. There are many great books out there, both new and old, that delve into the topics explored in this blog. As public interest shifts and talk about dead animals becomes more mainstream, there are, notably, quite a few recent titles that discuss subjects such as animal death, taxidermy, and recycling in the ecosystem. I haven't written a book review since middle school, so the first couple of reviews may be a little bit rocky – bear with me!

First up is Life Everlasting: The Animal Way of Death, a new book put out this year by biologist and author Bernd Heinrich. The narrative is divided into five distinct sections, each dealing – sometimes, only distantly – with a different aspect of death, decay, and rebirth in the ecosystem. As I soon found out, the "animal" and "death" part of the title is a little misleading, but not in a necessarily negative way.

In part one, Small to Large, Heinrich opens with discussion and notes from his observations of the habits of burying beetles. This was one of my favorite sections of the book, as I'm a sucker for insects, and I learned quite a bit about burying beetles and other insect decomposers. The author then moves on to other familiar scavengers: ravens and coyotes, for instance, and their roles in the recycling of larger animals, such as deer, before tackling the subject of humans and our history of hunting, scavenging, and foraging, and what it means as we use more than our share of what the earth can provide.

The second part of the book, North to South, discusses scavenger birds: the common raven from the northwoods of the United States, and the various species of vultures distributed throughout the world. I found the anecdotes and information about the vultures to be of particular interest; I'm familiar mostly with our native turkey vultures (Cathartes aura), but reading about swarms of vultures descending upon a giraffe corpse on the African veldt was absolutely fascinating.

The importance of dead trees in a forest ecosystem is explored in the third section of the book, Plant Undertakers. Also discussed are the habits of dung beetles. At first glance, neither subject seems to be directly related to The Animal Way of Death – least of all, the feeding behaviors of dung beetles – but this part of the book is an interesting read, nevertheless. Dead trees are just as under-appreciated as dead animals, but they provide for a wealth of biodiversity – as Bernd Heinrich outlines in the chapter Trees of Life.

The fourth segment of the book, Watery Deaths, was a section that I wish had been developed further. For the most part, the author discusses two aspects of aquatic death: the salmon life cycle (I enjoyed this chapter immensely) and the deep-sea decomposition of whales, which was also fascinating. I would have liked to read more, however, about other animals that meet their end in the water. Aquatic decomposition is a mysterious and widely-misunderstood phenomenon; as someone who lives along the shore of Lake Superior, I see my fair share of decayed creatures, many of which do not live in the water but end up there nonetheless.

Changes, the fifth and final section of the book, wraps up a few loose ends – relating the dung beetle life cycle to human beliefs in death and the afterlife, for example – while also bringing up insect metamorphosis, something that, while interesting, I didn't think fit very well with the rest of the text.

Heinrich's narrative is a joy to read, and his observations about various animal undertakers – from the burying beetle to the common raven – are fascinating. Life Everlasting is unique in that it focuses on decomposition at a tiny level (Nicrophorus beetles on a shrew), while simultaneously outlining a worldview, as well (the ramifications of animal agriculture practices in respect to vulture populations). Despite a few chapters that seem to clash with the overall theme of the book, Life Everlasting is a good, thought-provoking read filled with fascinating facts, both humorous and sobering anecdotes, and, a pleasant surprise, some illustrations from the author.

There were many parts of the book that I'd love to repeat here, but I'll choose only one. In closing, here is a small passage from page 77, in the chapter The Vulture Crowd:

"Most parts of any domesticated livestock are now cycled only into human consumption, with scraps converted to pet food. Thus we and our pets are vulture stand-ins. But if an animal that is deemed not suitable as food for us dies, we also deem it unsuitable for availability to others. Even the road-killed deer and other animals that the highway department pick off the roads are disposed of by burying. Vultures would do the job better if we let them."

Coyote Bones

It's been nearly a year since I found a coyote dead in the road, brought her home, and skinned her. My journey with her is nearly complete; her skin has long-since been tanned, but over the months, her body has been decomposing in the backyard. In recent weeks, the process of decay has slowed down considerably; the remaining tissue is hard and dry, and no longer attracting insects. Her bones are half-buried in the dirt, their color taking on the same hue as the soil on which they rest.

 

At some point in June, I decided to remove the head from the body, for fear of losing small teeth and skull fragments. I submerged it in a tub of water, to macerate; there it stayed for several weeks, creating quite the amazing stink.

Finally, at the start of this month, I deemed the maceration to be finished. I removed the remaining bits of tissue (which was not a pleasant endeavor), soaked the skull in peroxide, then set it aside to dry. Like everything before, Coyote's skull proved to be quite the puzzle:

Besides having to deal with a whole array of loose teeth, the back of the skull was in pieces – fractured when the coyote was struck by an automobile. Some of the fragments are still missing, and despite searching for them in the backyard, I was unable to recover them. Rebuilding the skull was another challenge; some of the pieces refused to fit back together just right, as the bone had cracked and buckled from the collision.

After some initial frustration, however, I was able to reassemble Coyote's skull. Seeing it (mostly) whole, for the first time, was pretty amazing.

This coyote was a healthy, mature individual. Her sagittal crest is well-developed, some of the sutures on her rostrum are fused, and her teeth are strong, white, and slightly dulled from some years of use. The only faults I could find with the skull are related to the collision: her auditory bullae are missing, and a few teeth are smashed, which probably happened when her head hit the pavement:

I have one other complete coyote skull, purchased at a powwow last spring, and it's interesting to note the differences between the two. The purchased skull is much smaller, belonging to a juvenile animal; the sagittal crest is less prominent and none of the sutures are fused.

The rest of Coyote's skeleton is still outside. I'll likely be cleaning the bones soon, before colder weather sets in.

Wolves in the Library

Whether you're visiting Marquette, Michigan or you're a resident of the area, I recommend a trip to the Peter White Public Library! Currently, there is an excellent exhibit in the Huron Mountain Club Gallery, and it offers a unique opportunity to view taxidermy wolves, up-close and personal.

Wolves and Wild Lands in the 21st Century is produced by the International Wolf Center and discusses several subspecies of wolf, their ranges, and their interactions, both positive and negative, with humans and wildlife. The exhibit is made up of five mounted wolves, as well as a mounted coyote, and there are plenty of interpretive signs that accompany the taxidermy. In an area where wolves are a constant hot-button issue, this is a great exhibit to see!

 

 

 

The taxidermy is all quite excellent, and it's interesting to note that none of the wolves were mounted to appear ferocious or threatening – a practice that is all too common with predator taxidermy. There are many myths, superstitions, and irrational fears surrounding wolves, so it's good to see them portrayed in a more natural manner.

Wolves and Wild Lands in the 21st Century runs through September 25th at the Peter White Public Library.

Young Creatures

I do a whole lot of driving, and I'm always afraid that I'll witness an animal get hit by another car. It's happened before, and it's an awful feeling; you can't tell the other person to brake, nor can you make them swerve, and you become helpless and powerless, left only to look away when the collision takes place. Similarly, one of my more prominent fears is that after braking for an animal, or persuading it to cross the road, I'll come back later to find it dead.

That's what happened yesterday evening, to one of Steph's coworkers. A young gray fox was trying to cross Lakeshore Boulevard in Marquette – a slow, 25-mph stretch of road right in town – and it was obviously terrified and confused. She ushered it across the street, then continued on her way. When she returned, it was dead. Steph alerted me – it was a drop-everything-and-go sort of alert – and within minutes I was in town. The body was still warm when I arrived.

 

When I lived downstate, red foxes (Vulpes vulpes) were a far more common sight – alive as well as dead along the roadside. Here, however, gray foxes (Urocyon cinereoargenteus) seem to be more numerous. Sadly, they're hit quite often, as I've seen their bodies both in town and along the highway. I do see living gray foxes from time to time, though – there's one in our neighborhood, and occasionally I'll glimpse her trotting past our house in the morning. They're gorgeous creatures; the gray part of the name is a bit of a misnomer, because they're quite orange, too.

 

Gray foxes are a bizarre, unique animal, and I've always thought of them to be more primitive than other canids. Certainly, they are nothing like the domestic dog. In life, gray foxes are catlike when they walk; their muzzles are quite short, and their pupils become slits when they contract. Gray foxes also possess the amazing ability to climb trees. Here is a great video demonstrating this incredible skill. I did notice that this fox's claws were very sharp, just as sharp as those of a cat – likely to aid in vertical climbing.

 

What truly gave away this fox's age, however, were its teeth. Many baby teeth were still present, although a few adult canines could be seen poking through the gums. As the blood and misaligned jaws in this photograph depict, the fox was struck in the head and likely died instantly. 

A juvenile gray fox, however, was not the only young animal that I photographed yesterday. In the morning, Steph had alerted me to a few dead skunks along M-28, so I drove east to check them out. I passed plenty of turkeys, both toms and hens, feeding along the roadside, which I should have taken as a sign; I didn't end up photographing the skunks, and instead, I pulled over to check out a bird on the shoulder of the highway. It was a fledgling turkey, and not far from it was its mother, also dead.

Both turkeys had only just been hit; they had only just been scavenged, as well. The corpses were still warm, and their body cavities were devoured completely.

 

The fledgling turkey had been in an awkward stage of plumage when it died. Baby feathers remained in most places, while adult feathers were growing in on its tail and wings. None of the feathers had an iridescent shine; they were still mottled and brown, perfect camouflage for a young bird.

 

What surprised me the most was the relative size of the turkey's feet to its head. Turkey feet are huge! They have to be, for a bird that spends most of its time walking.

It's both ridiculous and dismaying to imagine a fox getting hit on a 25-mph stretch of residential road, or a turkey family getting plowed over, likely when taking a slow stroll across the highway. Right now, many young animals – especially skunks, raccoons, and foxes – are getting hit by cars as they wander away from their mothers and dens. It's a time to be cautious when driving, and to remember that young animals, so unsure and curious in this big world, can be very unpredictable.