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National Geographic : 1974 Dec
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explorers witnessed herds of these noisy animals passing for days or even weeks. However, caribou usually scatter over a wide area, and a migration is more likely to be an intermittent stream of animals moving in one direction at about 20 miles a day. Animals Follow Invisible Signs I recently spent the first two weeks of October on the Alaska Peninsula. For several days I waited, scanning the empty tundra. Finally 400 caribou appeared on the low rolling hills that slope to the Bering Sea. Reaching the Egegik River, the leader, a cow-females often lead herds-trotted downstream. The sun dropped below the horizon, and the animals following her be camedark silhouettes against the golden sky. The leader swam 150 yards across a narrow part of the river. The others followed, single file. Beyond the river the caribou disappeared under a low-hanging full moon. Two days passed before I saw another band; they followed the same route. I have often seen caribou bands trailing one another by a matter of hours or days, yet using exactly the same route. For a long time I wondered how they could follow one another with such certainty. A clue came on another trip to the Alaska Peninsula with my brother, Don, his son, Steve, and my wife, Audrey. On a high ridge we startled a magnificent lone bull. He reared on his hind legs, great antlered head high, white mane flying, then ran forward for half a dozen giant steps before his front hoofs touched the ground again. "I've never seen anything so magnificent!" Don exclaimed as the bull galloped away. We sat down and played our glasses over the area. Hours later, six caribou approached. They didn't see or smell us; the wind was be hind them. Yet when they came to the spot where the bull had reared, they became alarmed, then detoured and fled. "How did they know about that bull?" Steve asked. "He's been out of sight for hours." The answer, it seems, is that caribou fol low odors left by others of their kind that have passed hours or perhaps days before. That leaping, rearing bull had left a special odor. He performed what scientists call an Three hundredfifty pounds of fury strikes back as the caribou rams his rack
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