Strange things found in the woods

[sheepdip]

found this inside of a hollow snag that had fallen over, we cut it up for firewood, split it open and most all of the inside of the snag looked like this. too small of an opening for a human to have done this???

 

[Certaindeaf]

Littlefoot.

 

[erudne]

found this inside of a hollow snag that had fallen over, we cut it up for firewood, split it open and most all of the inside of the snag looked like this. too small of an opening for a human to have done this???

Mountain Beaver

 

[salmonriverjohn]

A miniature Sam Gribley from My side of the mountain? To those that don't know what I'm talking about, Google it, great story. That's odd sheepdip, were there any signs of an animal living in it? erudne may have nailed it, the pattern is very uniform.

 

[Blitzkrieg]

Most people think I'm humorously referring to hill girls when I mention these guys, they are usually spotted as a faint wisp/furry flash that vanishes into a hole. they are all over our Oly Peninsula land, as well as some real beavers

Mountain beaver - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

[DeanMk]

Most people think I'm humorously referring to hill girls when I mention these guys...

You know, I never would've went there, but now that you mention it, its all I can think about......THANK YOU!
Actually, I had a bad experience with area Mountain Beaver when I was very young.
Hissed and growled at me. I was sure it was going to attack (may have had rabies).
Dad came out and shot him with a .22.
They're not small.



Dean

 

[Blitzkrieg]

That's definitely not normal behavior for them

 

[sheepdip]

no signs of an animal living in it, it was laying uprooted with the top broken out of it. I suppose something could have been living in the root ball. I looked at the link on mountain beavers and it looks like it was out of their range, we were 20 or so miles southeast of John Day. I have cut a lot of wood on the east side of the state and have never seen anything like that. it was a pretty good sized snag, probably 30 inches at the stump and 16 ft. long. most all of the inside of the log looked like this'

 

[erudne]

I had one in my barn last year due to some local flooding

 

[Dunerunner]

Mountain Beaver, would that be a Marmot or are they two different animals?

 

[DeanMk]

The mountain beaver (Aplodontia rufa) is a North American rodent. Not to be confused with the North American beaver[2] Castor canadensis, or its relative the Eurasian beaver, Castor fiber,[3] it has several common names, including aplodontia, boomer, ground bear, and giant mole[citation needed]. The name sewellel beaver comes from sewellel or suwellel, the Chinookan term for a cloak made from its pelts. This species is the only living member of its genus, Aplodontia, and family, Aplodontiidae[4].
The mountain beaver is considered a living fossil,[13] due to the presence of a host of primitive characteristics, particularly the protrogomorphous zygomasseteric system. This condition is similar to what is found in most mammal groups, such as rabbits, where no extreme specialization of the masseter muscle has evolved. In the protrogomorphous condition, the masseter muscle does not pass through the infraorbital foramen as it does in guinea pigs and mice. Likewise, the medial masseter muscle attaches to the base of the zygomatic arch and does not extend to the region in front of the eye as is seen in squirrels and mice. The mountain beaver is the only living rodent with this primitive cranial and muscular feature (except perhaps the blesmols, which clearly evolved protrogomorphy from a hystricomorphous ancestor). The mountain beaver was once thought to be related to the earliest protrogomorphous rodents, such as the ischyromyids (Paramys). Both molecular and morphological phylogeneticists have recently suggested a more distant relationship to these animals.
Molecular results have consistently produced a sister relationship between the mountain beaver and the squirrels (family Sciuridae). This clade is referred to as Sciuroidea, Sciuromorpha (not to be confused with the sciuromorphous zygomasseteric system), or Sciurida, depending on the author.
According to the fossil record, the Aplodontioidea split from the squirrels in the Middle or Late Eocene as indicated by the extinct genera Spurimus and Prosciurus. The fossil record for the genus Aplodontia extends only to the Late Pleistocene of North America.

So there you go.
It's a big, ancient RAT and they can be mean.


Dean

 

[xlsbob]

We called them boomers where I grew up. Every once in a while one of the cats would tangle with one and that usually ended up with the cat crawling home to die.

 

[TVHunts]

I have never posted on this site before but, I have a story for " strange things found in the woods".
This September while archery elk hunting on the SW Washington coast a hunting partner had hit a cow elk and radioed for some help. He was already in the woods for over an hour before I got to him and I knew approximately where he was. I found his markers and then started tracking my way to him. As I was walking and following a blood trail I look up in front of me about 20 yds and I see something sticking out of a old cedar blow down. Instantly my mind registered that it looked like a old red butt pad from a rifle. I walked up to it and gave it a light tug. It came loose and, sure enough it was the butt stock of a rifle. It had broken (rotted actually) at the back of the reciever. So I got on my knees and started digging a little to find the other half of the rifle. As I dug a little I got into an old black garbage bag and kept digging. I couldn't believe what I had found, an entire collection of weapons. These things were buried down through a creek bottom and over a half mile from the nearest road. Under that log was 3 long rifles, all of them scoped, 1 pump shotgun, and 1 very old Winchester lever gun with a saddle ring and, 1 old wheel gun. All of them were incredibly rusted and most of the wood was rotten except the Winchester. It was an old octogon barrel in 25-20.

I marked the location of them and continued on. When I got back to them I put all of them in my pack except the shotgun and hauled them back to camp. On my go home day I called the Sheriff. They came up to camp, took a report and took them away. I checked in with them about 3 weeks later. The weapons had been stolen in a home robbery in the 90's and the victim was "since deceased" I was told and no next of kin was listed to contact.

 

[Gaucho Gringo]

Are you going to get them back or ?

 

[TVHunts]

Are you going to get them back or ?

I did ask what will happen to them. I was told by the evidence gal for the county that they were being sent to the lab to be checked to see if they were safe to release to me ie operable....HELLO! So I told the gal I was sure none of them were and that I would really like to be able to get the 25-20 back, clean it up and use it as a wall hanger if possible. She stated that checking these out will probably not be priority but they will get to it. She also said they will most likely get destroyed otherwise. I told her I was into to guns and more rifles than anything and I would really like to get it if possible.

I think I will check in after the new year.

 

[RVTECH]

I would be nice to hear from anyone who has had guns returned from an LE agency after similar situations. I have had two experiences in my life with this and they both resulted in no returns.

 

[xlsbob]

I'd stay on them to the point of being a pest about it. A lot of cops are also gun collectors and its a pretty safe bet that old Winchester won't get destroyed once it's cleared.

 

[DeanMk]

I did ask what will happen to them. I was told by the evidence gal for the county that they were being sent to the lab to be checked to see if they were safe to release to me ie operable....HELLO! So I told the gal I was sure none of them were and that I would really like to be able to get the 25-20 back, clean it up and use it as a wall hanger if possible. She stated that checking these out will probably not be priority but they will get to it. She also said they will most likely get destroyed otherwise. I told her I was into to guns and more rifles than anything and I would really like to get it if possible.

I think I will check in after the new year.

...and the game begins...

 

[Sstrand]

Next time carefully choose the ONE you are willing to turn over to the coppers . . .

Have I ever mentioned: "No good deed goes unpunished?"

Sheldon

 

[TVHunts]

I never thought twice about turning them in. I felt like some poor guy had all his weapons stolen and deserved to know where they ended up regardless of them being junk now. Especially the old Winchester, I assumed it was probably a hand me down from a dad or grandpa.