On a not-so-dark desert highway (NM117),cool wind in our hair,we pulled off at a roadside picnic area for a comfort stop.
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As is our wont, we took the opportunity to ramble around a bit along in the "Narrows",where the El Malpais lava flow comes up against a series of sandstone escarpments.
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Poking around the edge of the lava bed, we saw what looked like a scapula...
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Hmmm,we wondered, maybe there are some more bones around...think of the possible photo-ops! Imagine our surprise when we saw this!
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Curious as to what might have caused the demise of this particular specimen (hunter? mountain lion?), we stopped in at the nearby visitor center. According to the nice woman at the info desk, the animal had probably fallen into the crevice sometime during the winter and broken a leg.
2 comments:
Nice photojournalism.
Sad story, though.
I think I like my bones old, old, old. From another time, another place. Give me lots of emotional distance.
Mother Nature is a bitch, of course.
Sad in a way, I agree. One thing's for sure-that elk provided a lot of sustenance to a whole range of scavengers in that little micro-climate.
I wonder...how many elk in that area die of old age? "Not many" would be my guess.
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