A few years ago when I was stationed aboard a CG cutter here in Kodiak I was in the habit of going up on the bridge while inport and glassing the mountains round about for game with the "big eyes" mounted up there.
One winter I spotted a doe with a front leg missing up on a bald knob of the mountain across the bay. I pointed her out to friends and we speculated on how long she would last - not long was the general consensus. She sort of of poked around and grazed using her front leg as a sort of "tripod". I looked for her every time we were in port and she appeared to survive the winter.
The following year she was there again and amazingly, the year after that!
That was 6 or 7 years ago and she surely has gone back into the food chain by now but it was a lesson in how tough an animal really is.
This animal survived a grave wound of some sort, surely followed by massive infection and then at least 3 tough Alaskan winters on 3 legs!
I read about a big white tail buck taken somewhere that had the head of another buck locked in its rack. It had gotten locked up in a fight, dragged its opponent around for some time until it was able to twist its head off and then survived long enough to be taken by a hunter who was very surprised to find this smelly double-rack trophy.
Surely, thats the most unusual mount on any wall anywhere!
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Keith
The Bears and Bear Maulings Page:
members.xoom.com/keithrogan