Gee, this tastes good

©2012 Lydia Hinshaw

 

Bighorn sheep finds something tasty under truck

 JASPER, AB -- Tourists come to Miette Hot Springs to soak in 104-degree water.  Bighorn sheep come to Miette Hot Springs to panhandle tourists.

 Many of the sheep are successful.  In spite of warnings and even laws against it, tourists do feed wildlife.  We saw some doing just that last week.

 Later, when no one was forthcoming with junk food, this bighorn got down on her knees to partake of something on the underside of this pickup truck.  Probably she was just getting at the salt that tends to stick to vehicles here during the winter, which has not been over very long here in Alberta.

 But animals are also attracted to various fluids that are used in motor vehicles.  Last summer in Glacier National Park in Montana, we daily saw mountain goats licking the ground under heavy equipment, or where such equipment had been parked.

 A park biologist who rode my bus one day explained that the goats are killing themselves slowly by ingesting antifreeze and other toxic substances.  And there is no easy or cheap solution.

 The construction equipment has to be there to repair and improve the road, a process that goes on all summer, every summer.  The park service, and we the taxpayers, can't afford 24-hour security to chase animals away.