AMPHIBIOUS COMBATS.
Very few of the present generation of hunters, I presume, have ever
witnessed a fight between a beaver and an otter. I venture to think
that the narrative of such an event will prove interesting to readers
of _Hunter-Trader-Trapper_, especially as it comes first hand from
the person who saw the fight from the start, and was in at the
finish. It was an unique spectacle of once in thirty-five years of
bush life.
I must digress a little at the start to explain that otters often, in
the autumn, endeavor to find some tenantless beaver lodge situated on
a chain of small lakes. If fortunate to find such, they at once
pre-empt the old lodge and make it their home and headquarters. If
the fish supply is ample in the lakes and small connecting creeks,
they stay there until the snow hardens, and openings occur in the
large rivers and then slide away to new fields, or rather, waterways.
This migration is generally about the 20th of March in our Northern
Country.
One day in the latter part of October I portaged my bark canoe over
the divide into another chain of lakes, with the object of
ascertaining if there were any beaver in that section. I came out to
the shore of the lower lake of the string, in a small grassy bay, and
was just in the act of taking the canoe off my head, when out in the
bay, an acre or two from shore, I saw a beaver swimming on the
surface at a high rate of speed. Being yet early in the afternoon I
wondered at this and waited, with the canoe still tilted on my
shoulders. All at once a long, shiny, snaky looking animal broke
water in the wake of the beaver and a short distance behind the
latter, evidently in pursuit.
The beaver was no sooner aware of this than he appeared actually to
stand half out of the water, the next instant he turned and faced his
pursuer. The distance between the two was so short that in a moment
they were fast to each other's throat and then for some minutes
neither could be seen for the churning and splashing of the water. I
took the opportunity while they were thus engaged to unload my canoe
and slip it half way into the lake ready to embark.
After the first fierce fighting impact and deadly grip, when they
appeared pretty well exhausted--the fight going on at times on the
surface--and again both would disappear beneath the waters of the
lake, still locked together with the tenacity of bulldogs. Then they
rose to the top, this time separated, and at some little distance
apart, both plainly much spent. Then they circled about one another,
much in the same way as two boxers sparring. Again a mad rush at each
other, and again the strong jaws of his opponent, and the same scene
was enacted again. I thought it was about time to push out and take a
closer aspect of affairs. The fight was interesting, but the chance
of getting a beaver and an otter, with one shot, far surpassed the
proverbial, "two birds with one stone."
What little breath of wind that ruffled the bay was in my favor, so
with both barrels of my gun cocked leaning against the canoe bar, I
sculled the birch silently but swiftly thru the water unnoticed by
the combatants. When just about to take my gun, "the moment too late"
occurred right then, and they separated as by mutual consent; the
beaver swimming toward the shore and the otter pawing the water in a
blind, dazed sort of a way. The latter being the nearer to the canoe
and the most valuable of the two, I fired and killed him. On the
flash and report of the gun, the beaver dived and I pushed the canoe
in his direction, with the other barrel ready when he should come up.
I had over-shot the place when he had disappeared and waited looking
toward the shore, where I expected he would next come to view.
Minutes passed and no sign, I turned about in the canoe thinking
possibly he had doubled under. Not ten feet from the stern of the
canoe, there was Mr. Beaver, dead without my firing a shot, dead from
his wounds. I pulled him into the canoe and paddled back and picked
up the otter.
After getting ashore and examining them both carefully and again when
skinning them, I found the beaver had died of his terrible wounds and
no doubt the otter was in the last throes of his life also, when I
gave him his quittance. The hair and skin on their bellies were much
scratched and cut up by the sharp, hard claws of their hind feet.
Their necks were one mass of teeth marks, and the jugular veins in
each were pierced. Both would have died of their wounds in a little
while, without the use of the gun, had I withheld my fire for a few
minutes, for they were fast bleeding to death.
I ascertained afterwards that this beaver had been the only one in
the lake; the otter no doubt had driven him out of his house, and not
content with this had pursued him, courting battle. In the fight that
ensued, of which I had been a witness, both had met their death.
* * *
The sight I witnessed some years ago is so unique that I think it
will prove interesting to the readers of _Forest and Stream_.
I was at the time stationed right in the moose country, having for
its center the great Kipewa Lake. One day toward the end of November,
when, as yet only the bays of the big lake were frozen, I started to
visit some mink traps in my canoe, accompanied by a small little rat
of a dog. It was still open water in the body of the lake, but as I
have said, the bays were frozen a couple of inches thick. There is a
long point of land jutting into the lake. Open water washed the beach
on my side of this; but on the other side was a frozen bay. I landed
about the middle of the point to fix up a mink trap. The little dog
ran up into the timber, and a minute or two after I heard him giving
tongue in a savage manner for so small a beast, and I knew he must
have started up something extraordinary, possibly a bear. I ran down
to the canoe for my gun, and started off in the direction of the
barking, which by that time was becoming more remote. Pushing on, I
came out to the shore on the opposite side of the point. Here I
witnessed a sight never before nor after seen by me during a
residence of over thirty years in the wilds of Canada.
A large cow moose was slipping about on the glare ice trying to make
her way to the other side of the bay. I was so spellbound for a few
moments that I let the opportunity pass to shoot. The ice was so
glare that it was with difficulty the large animal could make headway
at all.
My little dog had now come up with her, and very pluckily nipped her
heels. The huge beast tried to turn in her headway to face the cur.
In doing so, her four feet all slipped at once from under her, and
her great weight coming down so suddenly on the thin ice caused it to
break in fragments, and the moose was in the water.
To get out of that hole with no bottom to spring from was more than
that moose, or any other, could do, but the poor beast did not
realize this, and continued swimming around, and every now and again
getting its front hoofs on the slippery edge, only to fall backward
again into the icy waters.
The dog followed it about the opening, barking continually, but the
moose had more pressing business than to bother with a small dog. I
saw that the creature would never succeed in extracting itself, and
thought to end its misery. From where I stood the distance from the
shore was about two hundred yards. I therefore started to load my gun
(it was before the days of breechloaders), but when I got to the
final of putting on the percussion cap, there was none.
Although I was positively sure the moose would be frozen stiff in
that hole in the morning, the fascination of the sight kept me
standing there on the rocks watching her struggles.
I must have stood there for two full hours, as the sun of the short
November day began to get near the treetops, and a cold, cutting
north wind began to blow.
The poor moose was now swimming about very slowly, and at times
turning up on her side. This told me the end was not far off.
The last look I gave she had part of her head resting on the ice, and
her body was floating on its side. Then I recrossed the point and
paddled home as fast as I could.
Next morning we got a large canoe out of winter quarters, and with my
two men we paddled back to the point, supplied with ropes and axes.
The night had been a cold one, and had increased the thickness of the
ice sufficient for us to walk upon. We cut a couple of long pines, or
levers, and went out to the hole. The head was frozen just in the
position I had last seen it, and this kept the body from sinking. Our
first precaution was to chop the ice away about the carcass and get
ropes about it. Then we got another around the neck and chopped the
head clear.
We dropped it as it was to the shore, and there cut it up in
quarters. All of the breast, neck and front legs were quite useless,
being a mass of conjected blood and bruised flesh, caused by the
moose's contact with the ice. These condemned parts, however, were
not altogether useless, because I used them to bait my traps. Besides
the eatable part of the meat, I got twenty pairs of shoes out of the
hide.
* * *
Just after the above account of the very unusual occurrence was
received, a press dispatch telling of a somewhat similar happening
appeared in the New York newspapers. There is no doubt that accidents
of one sort and another are responsible for the death of large game
much more frequently than we imagine. It is certain also that among
the young of such animals there is a considerable mortality, although
we do not know that any observations on this subject have been
recorded. Every man who has hunted much, however, has probably seen
something of this, and we should be glad to record any such
experiences of this sort which our readers have had. We ourselves
have not infrequently found young deer and antelope that had
evidently died from diseases, and more seldom have seen young elk,
and on two occasions, young mountain sheep, dead, for whose taking
off there seemed to be no reason to be advanced except sickness. It
is well known that on the fur seal islands of the North Pacific and
the Bering Sea, thousands of pups die annually from disease, in
addition to the vastly greater number which starve to death through
the killing of the mothers by pelagic sealing.
The _Sun_ account above referred to reads as follows:
Captains Wisner, Verity and Ira Udall, who have been across the bay
to Fire Island beach, arrived here to-day. They say that two deer,
one a fine large six-year-old buck and the other a doe, had walked
out on the ice and had broken through. They had been unable to get
back to the mainland and were carried with the current. They drifted
across the bay a distance of nearly ten miles and were being taken
out into the ocean when seen by Captains Udall and Verity from the
State wharf east of the lighthouse.
The two men put off in a lifeboat and succeeded in driving the buck
ashore. The doe was almost dead by that time. Every effort was made
to get her ashore and save her life. A rope was fastened around her
body and she was soon on shore, although after no little effort. She
soon, however, died of exhaustion. The buck ran off east on the
beach, but unless its instinct is strong enough to teach it to follow
the beast east to the mainland, seventy miles distant, it will soon
starve, as the sand hills and meadows are now bare of vegetation.