AZLance Report post Posted May 27, 2014 Found an awesome spring, hung a camera, came back a week later and... Before 1 week later after cows came into the area Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Guest oneshot Report post Posted May 27, 2014 Ouch... Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
CouesWhitetail Report post Posted May 27, 2014 Wow! they sure can do a number on vegetation. What a change. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
camoremi Report post Posted May 27, 2014 I hate cows. Destroy awesome spots not to mention they push deer out of the area Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
1uglydude Report post Posted May 27, 2014 I hate cows. Destroy awesome spots not to mention they push deer out of the area ...wild burros and horses too. 1 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
rossislider Report post Posted May 27, 2014 I hate cows. Destroy awesome spots not to mention they push deer out of the area ...wild burros and horses too. All true, but they taste fantastic! 2 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Pine Donkey Report post Posted May 27, 2014 Much of the water in this state is maintained for cattle. Deer, elk and other wildlife benefit from it. Without the cattle industry, and the millions they spend annually to make sure water is available, the wildlife numbers in the state would plummet. No doubt that cattle do change the landscape and vegetation, but so do other animals. Have you ever seen what happens to a pristine mountain spring with a bull elk taking his first wallow of Spring? I would argue that Spring is not destroyed, and it will recover. It is not likely that this recent visit by cattle is the first it has ever seen. That is a beautiful spring. I would bet that when a thirsty deer, elk or bear shows up they will still drink. They have coexisted their entire life with cattle...they do not know any different. Anyone that feels cattle push deer out of an area should avoid those areas with cattle. I myself have had a lot of success hunting amongst those delicious bovines. 14 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Guest oneshot Report post Posted May 27, 2014 I hate cows. Destroy awesome spots not to mention they push deer out of the area ...wild burros and horses too. All true, but they taste fantastic! While training with a British Army unit in Africa, we traded our MRE's for British meals. They called one meal "Puke-bags" and the other "S*&T-bags", someone asked the difference, Puke-bags were chicken based, S*&t bags were beef based.Called such because of their appearance... After I picked a S*&Tbag and was ready to dig-in, a Local said " This isnt beef, it's horse, and it's Gooood horse"... Sgt Major says " Bollocks, HMG wouldnt feed us Horse"... Local says " I know horse meat, and this a REALLy goood horse" as he scoffed it down... Dont know if it was horse meat or not... Yeah, I ate it... Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
DCS Report post Posted May 27, 2014 I agree with you pine donkey,I would be willing to bet that those pipes were put there by a rancher to improve the spring,not by a individual trying to get better trail cam pics!!! 3 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
azslim Report post Posted May 27, 2014 ranchers have been stewards of the land for many generations, where do you think the bulk of the dirt tanks come from, the Govt didn't build them and do little to maintain them. 3 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
azshtr Report post Posted May 27, 2014 I appreciate what the ranchers do, I don't appreciate the mind set that they own the land they lease. 4 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Edge Report post Posted May 27, 2014 Same happened where I put a camera up at a springs in the Eagletails. Nice little springs and pools of water everywhere and about 15 head of cattle browsing the area. 3 days later the water was gone and the cattle moved on. Those springs will recharge and the wildlife there had an AZGF catchment and tank a few hundred yards away that the cattle couldn't get to. Speaking of cattle ruining things, just got a call from a rancher wanting to know if I were interested in harvesting some wild cattle on his USFS lease. 1 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
PatrickJr Report post Posted May 27, 2014 Much of the water in this state is maintained for cattle. Deer, elk and other wildlife benefit from it. Without the cattle industry, and the millions they spend annually to make sure water is available, the wildlife numbers in the state would plummet. No doubt that cattle do change the landscape and vegetation, but so do other animals. Have you ever seen what happens to a pristine mountain spring with a bull elk taking his first wallow of Spring? I would argue that Spring is not destroyed, and it will recover. It is not likely that this recent visit by cattle is the first it has ever seen. That is a beautiful spring. I would bet that when a thirsty deer, elk or bear shows up they will still drink. They have coexisted their entire life with cattle...they do not know any different. Anyone that feels cattle push deer out of an area should avoid those areas with cattle. I myself have had a lot of success hunting amongst those delicious bovines. in addition to this.... I have witnessed, first hand, that deer arent as affected as some may think. on a ranch in mexico where i hunt, there is a natural spring, that maximum is 4sq.ft. whenever the cattle(or horses) come in, they drink it dry, and it easily takes 6-8 hours to refill (if left alone). these deer are extremely smart! whenever they hear or sense that some cattle/horses are coming, they run to the water so that they get some before its gone... my buddy learned this the hard way because he shot 2 coyotes from a blind with his bow and went to go drag them off when he heard the cattle.....he glanced up to see 2 bucks running into the water and he is outside of the blind!!! he ended up shooting one...but my point is that the deer might adapt like these deer have. i can prove my point with trail camera photos....most of the time deer are at the spring, cattle follow. My friend and i were going to pick up the camera, and we were talking fairly loud and making a bunch of noise. we came around the corner, and 3 deer spook off the spring. what does this mean???? this means that they heard us, thought we were cattle and rushed in to get water...... people, deer arent simply pushed out of an area because of cattle, they adapt to live with they cattle. cattle arent like neighborhoods....if anything we are to blame for making deer populations suffer....cattle are just bigger, less aggressive javelinas to the deer....cattle dont make it impossible for the deer to live there, just a little tougher... Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
JLW Report post Posted May 27, 2014 Much of the water in this state is maintained for cattle. Deer, elk and other wildlife benefit from it. Without the cattle industry, and the millions they spend annually to make sure water is available, the wildlife numbers in the state would plummet. No doubt that cattle do change the landscape and vegetation, but so do other animals. Have you ever seen what happens to a pristine mountain spring with a bull elk taking his first wallow of Spring? I would argue that Spring is not destroyed, and it will recover. It is not likely that this recent visit by cattle is the first it has ever seen. That is a beautiful spring. I would bet that when a thirsty deer, elk or bear shows up they will still drink. They have coexisted their entire life with cattle...they do not know any different. Anyone that feels cattle push deer out of an area should avoid those areas with cattle. I myself have had a lot of success hunting amongst those delicious bovines. in addition to this.... I have witnessed, first hand, that deer arent as affected as some may think. on a ranch in mexico where i hunt, there is a natural spring, that maximum is 4sq.ft. whenever the cattle(or horses) come in, they drink it dry, and it easily takes 6-8 hours to refill (if left alone). these deer are extremely smart! whenever they hear or sense that some cattle/horses are coming, they run to the water so that they get some before its gone... my buddy learned this the hard way because he shot 2 coyotes from a blind with his bow and went to go drag them off when he heard the cattle.....he glanced up to see 2 bucks running into the water and he is outside of the blind!!! he ended up shooting one...but my point is that the deer might adapt like these deer have. i can prove my point with trail camera photos....most of the time deer are at the spring, cattle follow. My friend and i were going to pick up the camera, and we were talking fairly loud and making a bunch of noise. we came around the corner, and 3 deer spook off the spring. what does this mean???? this means that they heard us, thought we were cattle and rushed in to get water...... people, deer arent simply pushed out of an area because of cattle, they adapt to live with they cattle. cattle arent like neighborhoods....if anything we are to blame for making deer populations suffer....cattle are just bigger, less aggressive javelinas to the deer....cattle dont make it impossible for the deer to live there, just a little tougher... quite sure deer can discern the difference between cows and humans, might sound better after a couple barley pops though. james 2 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Big Tub Report post Posted May 28, 2014 One of the many work projects by the Gould's chapter of NWTF, we fenced off a spring so the cows could not do this. 2 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
