Elk Reactions

[Swede]

This thread may seem a bit morbid to some, but I am curious. Do you think any elk feels significant pain from being hit with a well placed bullet or broad head? What evidence have you observed to support your belief? What reactions have you seen from elk being hit? Elk hit with a bullet from a high powered rifle are influenced a lot from the energy absorbed from the projectile. That part does not count.
I am not convinced they feel much. I think they run off due to the sound of the bow. What have you seen?

It is interesting that elk don\'t react at all like deer. A deer commonly kicks its hind legs out, and its rear is projected up, as they take off on the run when hit.

 

[bnsafe]

personally i dont think so. im sure they feel something, but i think their instict kicks in an by thetime the adrenaline is over they are dead. all assuming a good shot placement.

 

[elkmtngear]

I\'ve watched bulls stop and stare in reaction to a cow call with an arrow sticking in them on several occasions.

They do not appear to be in distress. :think:

 

[OldMan]

All mammals feel pain. Some have higher levels of endorphins than others, and tolerate pain better. It doesn\'t mean they don\'t feel it.

My pit bull got shot in the face by a porcupine. His mouth was full of quills as was his whole neck/chest area. We were up in the timber at 11,000ft. It would take too long to get him back to a vet. So, I started to pull the quills out of his mouth. It took me over an hour to get them out. They were stuck in his tongue and gums, and I was feeling his pain, but he never made a peep through the whole ordeal.

Some little fluffy dog would have been howling bloody murder. Some tolerate pain better than others. Just like elk. I\'m sure my dog felt the pain. He just didn\'t show it as much. Elk pee all over themselves when shot. A sure sign they\'re in pain.

 

[Deertick]

Oh, they feel it.

A well-placed broadhead may be the exception, in that they feel it less, but it still hurts.

If an animal couldn\'t feel pain, that would be a huge disadvantage for it ... Pain is a good thing ... it is a survival tool, and if they didn\'t have it, they wouldn\'t survive. We tend to think differently -- that \"pain\" is a \"bug\" instead of a \"feature\".

Death is tough no matter how it comes, very tough for animals.

\"Toughness\" is not \"anesthesia\". No, I think they feel it, they know it something is very wrong, very bad for them. Their thoughts are likely to try to get back to the herd until they finally succumb, if not shear panic.

Broadhead wounds, I think, are the fastest and sometimes the least painful ways to die if they cause rapid bleed-outs.

One thing people don\'t often think of is that \"Pain\" sensors are present really only in the skin and the periosteal wrapping of bone -- there are no pain fibers in viscera or muscle, which is why a needle biopsy of, say, a liver, only needs a little local on the skin.

A deadly wound causes pain in more ways than just somatic pain, though ... choking on blood isn\'t \"pain\" but it sure isn\'t a nice backrub, either! Panic isn\'t \"pain\" but in some ways it is worse.

I never try to justify killing animals by saying that \"this way they don\'t suffer.\" They do, and that\'s something we have to live with.

 

[bnsafe]

john i have to agree with you, an know your right with your knowledge. but i have to say that is an extreme downer for me. if i really thought about it i might actually quit hunting. when i was younger stuff like that didnt bother me, but the older, an therefore closer, to my turn stuff does bother me more.
with that said, the way i deal with it is a well placed broadhead is better than a mnt lion chewing on you, starving because your teeth are wore out, etc. everything dies, an there are worse ways than a few seconds of a broadhead wound. watching some elk stop at a call after being hit an not really reacting i always kinda thought of it as a needle injection to us. yea it hurts but not a big deal. i assume an hope they process it differently than we do as they have no concept of life an death. only instincts. but i still dont like it. if i feel like im causing extreme suffering i would have to quit.
if i like the meat of any wild game, an i dont, it would be easier for me. but i hunt for my enjoyment. sometimes i wonder if i should be out there just for my enjoyment.
dont get my wrong. im all for hunting. i just wonder if i should be out there when its not for the meat. im gonna have to think about this for awhile.

 

[Swede]

I was asking about situations where the bullet was well placed, and not where an elk takes a significant time to die or has a long term wound. I wondered if the pain was significant. Likely we have all heard \"they did not feel a thing\" when someone speaks about a person or animal being hit with a bullet that caused near instant death. The things I have seen animals do with an arrow in them or having it pass through seem incredible. I just wondered it they really felt much pain. I would think I would have dropped right there and just died. Elk are incredible animals and can be very tough.

 

[OldMan]

I\'ve never kidded myself into thinking the animals don\'t suffer. The time after the shot when you\'re all celebrating, and giving high fives the animal is suffering as it dies. Ever here the death moan of a bear dying?

If I wasn\'t doing it for food. I couldn\'t do it, but it\'s always bothered me to kill a perfectly healthy animal that might have had a long happy life.

Just talking about it makes me want to quit hunting. I think those of us that it bothers can only keep killing by not thinking about it. I should have ignored this thread.

 

[Swede]

I think it Is incumbent on hunters to make sure ethical kills when they shoot. If it helps you can think of all of the other things that bring about an elk\'s death. Off hand it seems they all are violent and many die only after long suffering. It surely doesn\'t bother me that an elk is going to die when I shoot. It bothers me if I shoot and they don\'t die right away.

 

[Bullnuts]

Interesting topic and I have to agree with Deertick on the pain thing. Hell ya, it has to hurt to get shot! I think pain thresholds for large animals is a bit different from what we might experience though. I\'ve seen a mortally hit cow elk actually put her head down and start feeding and then fall over a few seconds later. Since bullets possess so much more energy on impact, I would agree that they probably hurt more than a razor sharp broadhead and that a quick kill is very dependent on good shot placement and ethical angles.

 

[Deertick]

You know, when I started in Medicine, we used to circumcise babies with no anesthesia.

\"Gee, do you think it hurts? Or maybe he just doesn\'t like being tied down.\"

Personally, I think it hurt \'em. But, like elk, you couldn\'t ask.

Funny, though, some were pretty \"tough\" ... some would just holler til they wore themselves out. Shortly afterward, a penile block became standard of care. It sure helped me.

 

[cnelk]

Gee thanks John
You just gave me a new definition of pain...

 

[bnsafe]

im a op room nurse an that hurts me. but, i can be in on a amputation an go eat lunch. but take a toe nail off an if i watch i will pass out. so its all relative.

 

[OldMan]

You can watch taking the whole arm off, but pass out with a fingernail?

 

[timberland]

I had a customer/friend that got shot with a bow by a greenhorn on a fenced \"wack\'em\" style pig hunt. the arrow entered a couple inches above his navel and exited a inch or so to the right of his spine. Missed his big aorta(?) by in inch or so and a kidney by less than 1/2\". They removed several feet of colon and he was in the hospital 40+ days. Very lucky to be alive. He heard the shot and heard the arrow hit the brush behind him then \"IT HURT LIKE HE##\" But he didn\'t feel the impact, but the pain was almost instant.

 

[elkmtngear]

Wow, Barry your friend was lucky :angle:

Question is, if a girl in a string bikini had walked out and said \"hey big boy\"...would he have stopped to stare at that point? I think bulls in particular are so loaded with hormones, that they are not feeling much in the way of pain during the peak rut (at least with an archery hit).

 

[Deertick]

Lucky, indeed. A major vessel, or even the kidney, and he\'d have been down in seconds.

 

[timberland]

Yep, plus they were about 30 min from the hospital. Through it all, the worst part was the guy visited him only once in the hospital and never looked him in the eye or no appology. He never saw the guy again and never pressed charges or anything, he just kind of tried to accept it for what it was, an accident as the result of poor judgement.

 

[Bullnuts]

Ouch! Now I\'m not sure which would be worse - having Deertick circumcise you or getting shot in the guts with an arrow. Both would be bad....I think I\'m leaning toward the arrow though.

 

[OldMan]

I\'ll take the arrow.