Wildlife

Here are a few of stories of our encounters with wildlife while in the Jemez Mountains.


Young Beaver

We didn’t go to the Jemez Mountains just to ride snowmobiles in the winter. We actually spent more time there in the spring, summer, and fall than winter. As soon as the snow was gone or almost gone we would be up there in the truck looking for wildlife and spring wildflowers. We would sometimes see an elk or deer in the winter but saw a lot more in the warm seasons. Seeing a fawn was always a treat. Other animals we saw were coyotes, bobcats, skunks, foxes, and beaver. There used to be a lot of beaver dams at various places in the streams and little rivers. Many of the older ones were washed out in the late 1980’s. On day in the summer of about 1995 I remember walking along a creek while Lee and Dustin were off walking the other side. I sat down on the edge of the bank, took my shoes, and socks off and dangled my feet in the water. It felt so good. I sat there for about a half hour when I noticed something swimming in the water. As it got closer I saw it was a small beaver. I knew there were beaver in the creek so wasn’t surprised at seeing it. I sat very still and it came up and smelled my toes. Knowing that beaver are vegetarians and not meat eaters I was very hopeful it wouldn’t decide to sample my toes. To my surprise another beaver joined the first. After a few minutes they must have decided I wasn’t that interesting and they left but for me it was a very nice experience. I would guess from their small size, no bigger than a cat, that they were young beaver, maybe born that spring that had never seen people toes in their creek.

Bobcat Bend
I was always trying to get a good photo of wildlife or scenery. I guess the best one I ever got was of a redtailed hawk we saw sitting on a tree branch. I got several of it just sitting there then got a good one of its wings up as it few away. Another time I saw a bobcat as Lee drove around a turn in the road going up Fenton Hill. The bobcat was just a few feet off the road watching us. I had the camera in my lap, so put it out the window and tried to snap a photo, only to realize I was out of film. At this time we were using the Pentex 35mm camera. Of course the bobcat smiled as if he had known that the camera was out of film and then was long gone before I could even think about putting more film in the camera. From then on we called that turn in the road Bobcat Bend.



Large Herd of Elk
In the late 1990’s we got our first ATV, an Artic Cat 300. Of course it has 4 wheel drive, and although you aren’t supposed to, there is room on the back for a big pack of supplies or another rider. For a few years this is the way Lee and I did a lot of our summer traveling in the desert and mountains. In a year or so we decided it wasn’t such a good idea with just one ATV so we got an Artic Cat 500 with 4 wheel drive and a winch on the front. I have learned to love those two ATV’s more than the snowmobiles.

With all of our medical problems we can still ride the ATV’s, while the snowmobiles are now almost beyond our abilities when just the two of go. There are just too many safety issues for two old fogies like us.
I remember one day when we were riding on just the 300 ATV way up in the area on the Jemez Mountains that we call ‘the burn’ as there was a big forest fire in there in the 1970’s just before we started going up there so much. After that fire it seemed like it became a favorite area for the elk herds. Maybe it was because the Forest Service had reseeded the area with grass and there was enough open land for the elk to see someone or some predator sneaking up on them for a long distance. This day it was late afternoon just coming onto dusk in late summer. We were going fairly slow as we were hoping to see some elk but we never expected to go around a turn in the road and see the huge herd spread out across a big flat valley-like must have gathered there for a big convention of some sort. We had never seen more than a dozen or so at a time before and usually only two or three. We have never seen this big of a herd again nor talked to anyone that has. The cows and calves were snorting and doing the low elk noises almost like a bugle. There were a

few bulls that already had huge antlers still covered in velvet but at the sight of us they let out a few of the louder bugles that bulls do. I managed to get a couple of photos but it was late enough that they are real dark. Don’t think I changed the setting for the low light. In moments that herd had wheeled and disappeared over the ridges around the flat land area and back into the trees. It was like watching a big wave full of heads, backs and legs flowing across the land.
One of the first times we went camping up in the Jemez, long before Dustin was born, we had gone way back on a very rough 4-wheel-drive type trail that is even rougher now and I only go in to on an ATV. Not expecting to find anyone else that far back we set up our tent on a narrow animal trail as it was the flattest place around. That night as we were trying to sleep we heard elk walking by the tent snorting at the humans, and dogs sleeping on their trail. There was a tiny stream nearby and we were sure that they were going to get a drink. We weren’t afraid of the elk but I sure wish we had been able to actually see them rather than just hear them walking by and fussing at us.
After Dustin was born we decided to go deer hunting very close to that same area but on top of a flat, meadow area right before you drop off down the side of the mountain to the area where we had camped. This place had seven or eight of the remains of loggers cabins like it was one of the main camps used back in the 1920’s. We had parked there and Lee had gone for a walk to hunt for a buck deer. I

was doing what I could to entertain Dustin who was only about a year and a half old. We walked out away from the Scout and were headed over toward one of the old cabins. I had heard several gunshots way off in the opposite direction from which Lee had gone. Then they seemed to come a bit closer. And then I heard the sound of hoof beats as if a large animal was running toward us. I looked up expecting to see a cow but instead it was a large bull elk that came thundering out of the trees and started to run directly at us across the small clearing. I grabbed Dustin up and was turning to run for a cabin which was closer than the truck when I realized that the bull elk had seen us, whirled around faster than I had been able to pick up Dustin and was already gone back into the trees.
That poor elk had been more scared of us than we were of him. I am sure he had though that the hunters were after him even though it was deer season. An elk can’t know if it is being hunted or something else so it had run away from the rifle fire but had found it’s self face to face with another human. It also couldn’t know that I didn’t have a gun.


And as for me, I knew that elk was scared because someone behind him was shooting and for a brief second I was afraid that he might just be so scared he would simply run over Dustin and I. But the elk was able to respond to his instincts faster than I could and was gone back into the trees. I was glad he turned and ran but it was an interesting experience.

Deer and Toadstools
As many times as we saw deer and elk in the mountains I have been unable to get a really good photo of any of them. Some have been fair but never a great one. After I got my digital camera and a digital video camera I had hopes of doing better. The video allowed some decent shots a few times for a few seconds but again nothing great. A few years ago we were in the mountains in September cutting wood to use in our woodstove that winter. We stopped up on School House Mesa by a dead log and Lee started the chainsaw and was cutting up the log when I spotted three does watching us. They couldn’t have been more than about 50 to 75 feet from us. It was quite a surprise since we certainly weren’t trying to be quiet, what with the chainsaw and talking in normal voices.


I got my camera and tried to sneak up closer to them. They knew I was there and would move just enough to keep about the same distance from me. But I did notice that they were nibbling at the large, orange toadstools or mushrooms that I had seen scattered around. We had had a couple of good rains and there were different kinds of toadstools around. I thought that most of the toadstools in the mountains were probably poisonest to people at least and thought it odd that the deer were eating them. They didn’t seem to eat the whole thing but to nibble on the top. At one time I saw one looking really silly with a large peace of bright orange mushroom dangling out of it’s mouth. The deer never did get upset with me following them and run off as deer normally do. I just finally got tired of walking and thought I was far enough from Lee and the truck so I went back. I got a couple of fair photos that day but the little digital camera I had didn’t have enough of a zoom lens to let me get in closer. I could have had some good ones with the video or 35mm. Later after talking with Lee we wondered if the toadstools were making the deer a bit drugged or at least silly enough that they didn't run away.


The Bear Went Over the Mountain
There are bears in the Jemez Mountains but I have never seen one for more that a couple of seconds at a time. Certainly never long enough to get a photo of one. There may have grizzlies there, I can’t say for sure, but not now. I know there used to be grizzlies in the Gila National Forest near Silver City, NM so I would think there were some in the Jemez, too. Now there are only black bears in the Jemez. Of course not all black bears are black and I have seen several colors of black bears – black, brown, and even once a cinnamon colored bear

For years we smelled bear in a certain area when in Ghost Canyon. Yes, you can smell where a bear dens up
frequently. It smells like socks that have never been washed. The first time I can remember seeing one we were on Fenton Hill. We knew there was a large meadow on a certain road and when we drove up to it there was a fairly large brown bear out in the meadow of it. And this was about the middle of the day. I had always heard that bears could run fast and that bear proved it. He disappeared into the trees so quickly I wondered at first if I really had seen it. But Lee and Dustin said they had, too.
It was a few years later way back on Fenton Hill that we saw a black bear and it was with great delight we saw that she had a tiny cub with her. She was running beside the road when we first saw them and when she saw us she ran across the road and disappeared into the trees with the cub right at her heels. We were thrilled to see them if only for a couple of seconds and drove on down the road talking about them. Then about a hundred yards farther on there they were again crossing the road back to the side we had first seen them on still at a hard run. Mama bear was diffently upset and trying to get away from some kind of a threat to her and her

Several times in the area above Porters Landing we briefly saw a bear usually eating grass in a meadow and running off quickly when they were seen. One day we had rode the ATV’s back on that road and were coming back out after a nice ride but hadn’t seen any kind of wildlife. I was about a quarter mile in front of Lee when I went around a bend in the road and saw a cinnamon colored bear in the road. He had his head in a bunch of scrub oak right by the road and I think he was eating acorns. I had time to stop and watch for a few seconds as I fumbled in my jacket pocket for my camera. By the time I had it out and focused on him he realized I was there and went straight into the scrub oak and up the hill. Lee caught up to me and saw him briefly through the oak thicket but then he was gone. He hadn’t been a very big bear. Maybe a yearling or two year old. We looked around thinking there might have been a mama bear still with it but didn’t see any others.

Cows In the Mountains
One of the animals we see the most in the mountains isn’t even a native type animal. It’s the cows that some ranchers are allowed to run on Forest Service land

for a small fee each summer. I don’t think it’s right that the cows are where they can take the grass and other feed that should be for deer and elk. Another problem with the cows is the cow pies they leave everywhere that you sure don’t want to step in. Or has happened on occasion to have a dog you have taken with you decide to roll in cow poop, as dogs will do.
One time we decided to go camping up on School House Mesa. We had a pop-up camper we had bought used and wanted to try it out. We had two dogs with us, Dee Dee and Nikki. We got the camper set up, cooked supper on the stove in the camper and were getting ready for bed when we heard a strange animal noise. Gradually it got louder and louder and we realized that it was two bulls, Bovine type, not elk, that were fussing with each other. They were bellowing, and roaring and grumbling as they wondered around the area where we camped. So far they hadn’t come that close but wasn’t a pleasant feeling knowing that two great big 2 thousand pound bulls could start fighting and end up in the middle of our camp and maybe our camper. A pop-up camper wouldn’t be much protection from fighting bulls with only canvas on the sides and tops.


When it sounded like their grunts and bellows were getting way to close for comfort Lee and Dustin decided to get in the Scout and see if they could drive the two angry bull critters out of the area. I stayed in the camper with the dogs. It didn’t take much for them to drive the two bulls off and to keep following them for a ways to make sure they didn’t want to come back. But they didn’t know there was a third bull still hanging around the camper. I could hear him coming closer and close and then his big shadow was right on the canvas of the camper. I could hear his heavy hooves hitting the ground and the noise he made blowing his breath out as he growled and grumbled as he walked right by the camper looking for the other bulls so he could get on with the fight he wanted so badly.
The dogs lay beside me on the camper floor and I could just barely hear very low and vicious growling coming from them. I got down on the floor with them and whispered for them to be quiet. I knew that barking dogs would maybe really set that bull of to where he would attack the camper.
It felt like I sat there on the floor with the dogs for an hour or so listening to that bull and wondering where Lee and Dustin were, and worried that they had had an accident while driving off the other bulls and, also, worried that the other bulls would come back and start a fight with the one that was still there. I am sure it was only a few minutes really until I couldn’t hear the bull any more and then I hear the sound of the Scout coming back which was a very welcome sound.


We finished the night there with an ear cocked for the sound of one or more of the bulls returning but never heard them again, nor did we see them the next day.
Another time Lee and I decided to spend the night out in the mountains since Dustin was a teenager and we figured he could take care of himself and the dogs for one night. We didn’t take the camper but through an old matrise in the back of the truck under the campershell for sleeping rather than just sleeping on the ground. We were getting older and the hard ground isn’t really all that comfortable although I have slept out several times.
It was late July or August and very hot. We were camped near where the bulls were before and should have known better but it is an area where we see lots of elk which is what we were hoping for. We decided to take a ‘siesta’ or afternoon nap in the back of the truck under a shade tree with the back end of the truck and campershell open. We had been laying there about a half hour when we looked up

to see several cows standing about six feet from the back of the truck staring at us. These were just cows, not bulls, which looked more curious than dangerous even though a cow protecting a calf can be very dangerous.
Speaking of calves they are the only nice thing about the cows that allowed in the mountains. They can be cute little things even if I do know they will grow up to be cows. Some of the cows and bulls have horns, and some don’t, having been dehorned. I think the ranchers leave a few of the cows with horns so that they can protect themselves and other cows from the predators like coyotes, bears, and mountain lions. I have seen a few with some really nice, long horns on them. When I see one like that I sometimes try to get a photo of it.

Horse in an Elk Herd?
One day we were up on the ‘burn’ area and a small herd of elk were spotted feeding in an open meadow. One elk looked a bit weird. Another elk noticed that we were watching them and gave the warning that there was a truck with humans near by. The herd started moving at a quick walk and then a run as they crossed the road in front of us. That was when I realized that the weird ‘elk’ was actually a bay horse.
Seeing the horse running with the herd of elk led to all kinds of speculations as to why the horse was even on the mountain and loose. Horses shouldn’t be up

there, or at lease we didn’t think they should be. But knowing a little about how easy it might be to accidentally let a horse get away from you we weren’t really that surprised to see it. We had seen cowboys driving cattle to and from different areas on horseback. Plus there were usually several hunters each fall that hunted on horseback. Any one of these people might have lost a horse. Horses are very social animals as are deer, elk, cattle, and most hoofed critters. Since there weren’t any other horses loose on the mountain the horse had taken up with a herd of elk. We had frequently seen elk or deer grazing with cows.
After seeing the horse that time we really never expected to see it again. But we did. That summer we managed to get to the mountains a lot. Another time we came up on the horse lying under a tree with several elk lying near her. Yes, we were able to get close enough that when she got up as we rode by we decided it was a her, or a mare. After seeing her the second time we started looking for her and saw her several times that summer with the elk.
But then winter came on. We were concerned that she wouldn’t be able to

survive but didn’t know what we could do to help her. We though it should be up to the owner to go in and find her. We also had the thought that she would be caught when the cowboys went in that fall to bring out the cows for the winter. But the next spring when we rode up on the burn there she was. Not only had she not been caught but she had survived the winter. If she had been by her self maybe she wouldn’t have but by traveling with the herd of elk they probably were able to help her find food and protection from the native predators in the area.
We continued to see the mare with the elk for several years and once were able to get close enough to her that we thought she was going to come to us. We kept calling and she kept thinking of coming to us but never did and finally she turned and left. I don’t know what we would have done with her if she had come to us, as we didn’t have even a rope to put on her let alone a trailer to bring her out in. By this time I did have a horse, Star, that I was boarding at Alameda Stables and I had a quick thought that I could borrow a trailer if we could catch her. But I sure by this time she was a close as she could be to being a wild horse.
After seeing her once or twice more we never saw her again. I have always wondered if someone was able to catch her or if she just lived out her life running wild with the elk.