Tag Archives: death sentence

The Rut

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Yesterday was the official opening of the Rut. As you know, the Rut is where the bulls gather cows together called a harem and battle each other for breeding rights. This goes on for weeks and is the highlight of the Elks life, both cows and bulls. There’s usually a big opening ceremony down on the Madison river with hor’s d’oeuvre, some wine, the boxed kind mostly, there’s a lot of elk here for the opening, and we still haven’t fully recovered from the recession, a big banner across the meadow saying “Welcome back Bulls! Get to it!”. The press is on hand to do a shoot of the prominent bulls, They want to feature who’s the biggest, the baddest, which bull is going to kick the most bull butt, who’s going to collect the most cows. There’s always a breakdown sheet on the individual bulls stats. Who fathered the most calves, what was the bull calf ratio to cow calves born, etc. It’s like Yellowstone does Vegas.

There’s actually a pari-mutuel betting window set up down near 7 mile bridge for those so inclined. Last year their crowd favorite was a bull named Edwin, normally a shy reclusive bull in the off-season but a holy terror during the rut. He’s been ranked 1st with a 71-3-1 record. This year the money’s on a new bull named Thug. ( see image above) There’s not much known about Thug other than the fact that he put his antlers through the door of a Prius and made the driver embarrass himself. The Park staff gave him a written warning, which Thug promptly ate, and told him if he did it again they’d saw his antlers off. That got his attention for a minute. That’s like a death sentence during the Rut. Thug listened but showed no emotion. You’ll hear comments like “Dead bull walking” when he goes by now. It didn’t seem to phase him however as he promptly flipped the hor’s d’oeuvre table over during the weigh-in just to rattle Edwin. This should be a Rut of the century coming up folks.

Normally The Director is on hand to oversee the festivities and act as an unofficial Master of Ceremonies. This year there was a problem getting away from The Institute which can’t really be told in complete detail, but it had to do with our on going Animal Modification program. This is one of our most secret programs, not because it’s illegal, but it is to protect our investment and to keep our procedures under lock and key until we can file the proper patent papers and get everything trademarked. We can’t take the risk of losing the T-Shirt sales and other merchandising items we have planned by letting someone beat us to the punch.

We can relate the situation that occurred without giving away the details on our gene sequencing procedures or our use of a reconstituted and safe red-dye #2, that it was our work with Wolverines that went all over wonky of a sudden yesterday and caused the cancellation of our trip. Our purpose is to modify the Wolverines behavior so they can be sold as house pets. There has been a lot of heat on the puppy-mills lately and we frankly see a huge decline in cute huggable puppies in the not too distant future. That’s where we feel we could really capitalize on our new, gentle, genetically modified and recolored wolverines. With our new breeding programs in place, normally wolverines who are so mean one of them has to die in the mating procedure, can now mate safely, actually enjoying the process rather than ripping each others appendages off. We think we have reduced wolverine meanness to a more manageable level. That’s good as that means baby wolverines by the boatload and that means big bucks.

Briefly, our problem happened as we were loading the research vehicles to leave for the opening ceremonies, one of the interns was throwing a dead moose into their confinement area, the wolverines not the interns confinement area, for their evening meal and did not close the door and activate the remote tracking weapons and all of the wolverines got out of their cage. These were the unmodified wolverines. This created a real bad situation right now, we mean an awful one, and anyone who was caught outside was immediate wolverine food. Fortunately The Director, who is lucky that way was climbing up on the roof of the Mothership, our primary research vessel, and was able to pull the ladder up where he was safe but trapped. Several hours later one of our slow thinking interns remembered the tranquilizer gun and was able to dart two of the guard wolverines that were securing the door of our shed containing our bite proof wolverine recovering proximity suits.

To make a long story longer we got the suits, we rounded up and caught the wolverines, which is a whole battle by itself, and much of what we can’t tell you about, and got the area secured again. By then it was too late to leave and we were all tired so we said to hell with it and went in and had pizza and watched “Yellowstone – Super Volcano – Will it Blow and kill Everything and Everybody All Over the Place ” on TV. For those of you who haven’t seen this documentary, apparently it will. So after some thought we decided to pass on the Rut this year and wait and see if Yellowstone is still there in the Spring. But if you’re not doing anything the Rut goes on for a while and you can take it in. Let us know how it goes.

Ma Bone

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Here is one of the legendary characters that made Rocky Mountain National Park so interesting in the 40’s and 50’s. Those of you who follow park politics will have no doubt heard of the famous Ma Bone, herd organizer, wily politician and party line enforcer who ran the 5th ward with an iron jaw and sharp front hooves. The 5th ward as you know extends from the rich area of Horseshoe meadow, south through Beaver Meadows and encompasses most of Moraine park and is considered the prime grazing land of the park.

She got her name from her habit of carrying a bone around in her mouth and was seldom seen without it. There are many stories floating about as to what was the origin of the bone habit. Some say it is part of a leg bone from an early opponent, others say she got the habit because she was hooked on calcium. What ever the real reason was Ma Bone never said. And you didn’t ask Ma Bone twice.

During the turbulent heydays of the 40’s Ma Bone controlled the distribution of hay that was fed to the nearly starving elk herds in the winter and access to prime aspen groves in the summer. Payoffs were common and fortunes were made for her and her cronies at the expense of the rank and file. Those who objected to her iron rule often found themselves blacklisted to the poorer grazing areas along the park’s borders and if they fell out of favor far enough were often forced out onto public lands during hunting season. This was tantamount to a death sentence and just the mention of it had most elk towing the line.

She was considered a Kingmaker and many high-ranking herd bulls owed their status to Ma Bone patronage. They came to Ma asking for favors which she may or may not grant. This came at a price however and many bulls were forced into acting as Ma’s enforcers when rivals threatened.  Ma bone controlled the lucrative distribution of cow elk and even the largest bulls would tip their antlers to her for the most favorable picks of the herd. Whether they kept them or not depended on their skills in the arena but first they paid homage to Ma Bone.

She was a force to be reckoned with throughout her tenure which lasted for nearly twenty years. Towards the end of her reign a collection of young cows formed a cabal and decided that Ma Bone had outlived her usefulness. Jealous of her power and greedy for the money that could be made they formed a plan, telling Ma that there was a meeting of the heads of the different districts about redrawing the lines dividing the park and redistricting it into new configurations, and it looked like Ma was going to lose a large part of the Moraine. Incensed that someone might try and reduce her influence and power she headed to the proposed meeting site, forgetting that it was opening day of gun season for anyone with a cow tag. Before she realized that there was no meeting and this was a trick she was gunned down by a first time hunter who had no idea of who she was. An ignoble end to a larger than life character.

As you might imagine there was a huge amount of turbulence and upheaval after her death, and in the resulting chaos the park department stepped in and through judicial fencing and relocating portions of the herd there was never an opportunity for another Ma Bone. Her time had passed nearly as quickly as she did, and now there are few elk in the park that even remember her name. Fortunately The Institute owns this last known image of her and it resides in our archives. It is brought out occasionally as a centerpiece for our Unusual Characters show in the South gallery. Stop by and see it in person if you’re in the area.