When a horse dies in the Wyoming backcountry, sometimes the best way to keep it from attracting grizzly bears is using explosives to blow the carcass into tiny pieces.
In fact, the U.S. Forest Service even has a how-to instruction guide how to best do that, titled “Obliterating Animal Carcasses With Explosives."
But it’s so hot and dry right now, the Forest Service can’t explode the carcasses of two horses that slipped and tumbled to their deaths Friday on a remote trail near Cody out of fear that the blasts would ignite a wildfire.
The best the agency could do was to get both carcasses to the bottom of a steep slope and then re-route the trail. That was done in hopes of creating a buffer zone between the trail and any grizzlies that might show up to feast on the carcasses.
And it’s likely that bears will show up. Grizzlies are now in hyperphagia. That’s basically pig-out mode, during which bears cram down all the food they can find as they fatten up for hibernation.
‘It’s Kind Of Gory’
When conditions are better for it, the reasoning behind exploding carcasses is brutally simple.
A grizzly can’t hunker down and jealously claim a bunch of scattered remains as it could with an intact carcass, Shoshone National Forest Spokesman Evan Guzik told Cowboy State Daily.
“Instead of having the carcass in one place — it’s kind of gory — but basically, it spreads the problem out in a more particulate manner,” he said.
There’s Even A Guidebook For Proper Horse Carcass Exploding
Blowing carcasses to bits is a common enough practice that the Forest Serviced create guidebook for doing it properly.
“Explosives have successfully been used by qualified blasters to partially or totally obliterate large animal carcasses (horses, mules, moose, etc.),” according to the manual, published in 1995.
It’s somewhat technical reading, and not for the squeamish.
It’s recommended that roughly 3 pounds of explosives be placed under the main parts of the carcass in four locations: the hindquarters, midsection, front quarters and neck.
An additional pound of explosives should be placed in two locations under each leg.
“Use water bags to hold the explosives close to the carcass if it is impractical to place charges under the carcass, for example when the carcass is laying in water,” the manual states.
And a note of caution is given to remove horseshoes from the carcass beforehand “to minimize dangerous flying debris.”
Friday Horse Wreck Kills Two Mares
The horses killed Friday apparently slipped and tumbled off a dicey section of the Boulder Basin Trail, up the South Fork west of Cody.
The trail is busy this time of year; it’s a popular route for hunters into the game-rich backcountry.
Local hunter Joel Proffit uses the trail frequently. He told Cowboy State Daily that he was close enough to “hear the commotion” from the horse wreck on Friday, although he didn’t see it happen.
Apparently, two hunting parties — one headed uphill and the other headed downhill – where trying to pass each other on a narrow section of trail, when two mares slipped off and tumbled to their deaths, he said.
No human injuries were reported.
That section of trail isn’t for the faint of heart, Proffit said.
“It’s a thin trail. It’s a steep trail, with 23 switchbacks to get to the top, some of it through rocky terrain,” he said.
‘Bone Chips Everywhere’
Friday’s incident isn’t the first fatal horse wreck Proffit knows of on that trail.
A few years ago, he and his horses were almost struck by a packhorse that slipped from a few switchbacks above them and came careening down the mountainside.
“I heard somebody yelling, ‘Look out Joel, look out!’ And I looked up and all I saw was horse packs flying everywhere, and this horse coming down head over heels. It ended up hitting a tree about 10 yards from me, deader than a doornail,” he said.
It was cold and wet enough that fall, officials opted to blow up that horse carcass.
“I went back up a few days later. You could still smell it (the dead horse) and see evidence of it – bone chips everywhere. And there were grizzly tracks all around, but there was no carcass for a grizzly to sit on,” he said.
When Explosives Aren’t An Option
Whole horse carcasses from Friday’s accident being left in the general proximity of the trail increases the chances of grizzlies hanging around. But Proffit said he understands that officials didn’t have much choice, given current conditions.
“They are taking precautions, and rightly so. We don’t need another wildfire in this state right now,” he said.
Proffit, along with a few relatives and friends, were planning to go back up the Boulder Basin Trail on Wednesday, for another round of backcountry elk hunting.
“The talk right now is that the carcasses can be smelled from the trail, but people aren’t reporting any trouble with bears yet,” he said.
Forest Service personnel moved one of the horse carcasses a short distance, Guzik said.
“Where the horses slid off and died is a really, really steep part of the trail. One came to rest against some deadfall, the other came to rest all the way at the bottom of the slope,” he said.
A crew went in on Saturday and cut away the deadfall, allowing the first horse carcass to tumble the rest of the way down, to where the second carcass is, he said.
“They were able to re-route the trail, so it’s about 100 yards away from the carcasses,” Guzik said.
It’s hoped that will give any grizzlies that show up enough space to gorge themselves without having any conflicts with people using the trail, he said.
If the blasting goes well, the carcass is completely disintegrated, Crosby Davidson, a Forest Service regional blast expert, told Cowboy State Daily.
“It’s kind of gross, but if you do it right, you end up with a hole in the ground and no chunks bigger than what a bird would eat,” he said. “Later, you might find a bear wandering around, licking the dirt, but there’s no one thing there for him to defend, so he behaves differently than he would if there’s a whole carcass.”
He was part of the team that responded to the Boulder Basin Trail and confirmed that it was just too dry there to use explosives.
If snow and rain move in, and if grizzlies start making trouble there, the team might consider returning to explode the horse carcasses, he said.
However, blowing up carcasses that bears have already claimed can be dicey.
The grizzly must be hazed away from the carcass, and once the charges are set, the crew retreats to a safe distance before detonating them.
There’s always a chance that once the blast crew retreats, the bear could try coming back to the carcass and “you risk harming a grizzly,” Davidson said.
Mark Heinz can be reached at mark@cowboystatedaily.com.
