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Message: <blockquote data-quote="John Dracon" data-source="post: 3335557" data-attributes="member: 14799">On the subject of bald and golden eagles, several days ago I left WSS to go to the nearest Home Depot store which is 75 miles away in Montana's state capitol, Helena.  It was a most unusual trip. Most of Montana is under a thick blanket of snow.  Yet the highways were summer time bare.  I have never seen so many eagles gathered as I did then.  There are several reasons for this.  Montana has lengthened it elk season to kill surplus cows.  This rarely happens.  Highway US 12 passes  through hay lands and rich grazing grounds on its way to Helena.  These are alfalfa fields preferred by elk above almost anything.For years the elk have been steadily increasing on private lands.  Their numbers in Meahger County exceed the range capacity to handle them.  Herds of 700 to 1,000 elks will be out in the flats near the highway.   Hunters will intercept them in the morning  when they leave the hayfields, or sometimes the elk just stay put.  Anyway, hundreds are killed near the highway.  When the hunters field dress the cows (the only ones they are allowed to shoot), they leave behind a bonanza of what are called gut piles.  These, the eagles and other scavengers soon find a major source of food.  The hunters rarely take the livers, hearts, and kidneys, and these plus fetuses (most cows are pregnant by mid October) and a third  of the way through their gestation, so the eagles have much to gorge on.It is common to see 3-4 eagles working the gut piles along with lesser scavengers such as ravens, crows, and magpies.  Also, many deer are killed by vehicles on the highways in the winter, and the eagles also find them.  One can drive by an eagle twenty feet off the highway and it will ignore the driver, unless he stops, and then the eagles become nervous and will fly off.The road from Townsend to Helena has a long straight stretch.  On one side are power poles sticking up with a cross arm supporting the wires.  They look like elongated Christian crosses.  Eagles and hawks will perch on the top pole, and with snow on the ground, they are easy to spot.I counted over 20 eagles in fifteen miles of travel, plus the first snowy owl I've seen this winter.  It was a most pleasant trip to make.John</blockquote>

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