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What Animals Live at Mount Saint Helens National Volcanic Monument

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(FAQ vii) How were large mammals affected by the eruption?

Elk did not survive the blast, but these highly mobile animals were visiting the disturbed area within weeks after the eruption. During late summer, herds of adult bull elk travel together. Here they are running across the debris avalanche deposit (photo by Chuck Tonn).

Several large mammals lived in the Mount St. Helens surface area before the 1980 eruption. These included large herds of majestic elk (Cervus elaphus), black-tailed deer (Odocoileus hemionus columbianus), mountain goat (Oreamnos americanus), American black behave (Ursus americanus), and cougar (Puma concolor). The eruption's devastating lateral blast and debris avalanche instantly killed all large animals, which could not outrun the flight rock and hot gases and were too big to hide. During search-and-rescue missions in the first few days afterward the eruption, emergency personnel saw many elk carcasses throughout the blowdown zone. Elk and other large animals survived in the tephra-autumn zone where just cool ash and pumice buried the forest floor, but the animals were probable temporarily displaced as they searched for food.

Many large mammals are highly mobile and within days of the eruption traveled into the disturbed areas in search of food, which was initially in very depression supply. Because these animals have big energy reserves and tin can travel long distances, they could afford to roam the disturbed areas, searching for food in the isolated vegetation patches.

Eruption's effect on elk and deer

Herbivores, or institute-eating species, such equally elk and deer returned to the blast area the commencement summer. They influenced the growth and spread of plants in several means, some positive and some negative. First, these hoofed animals broke up the ash surface, which promoted erosion on steep slopes, thus allowing cached plants to sprout. Second, elk and deer tracks nerveless current of air-diddled seeds that later sprouted. Tertiary, elk and deer carried seeds and spores in their gut track and afterward deposited the seeds and spores with their fecal material in the disturbed area. Negative effects included grazing, which severely affected developing vegetation on the pyroclastic catamenia, droppings avalanche deposit, and blowdown zones. Elk spread the seeds of exotic plant species as well as native plants, and some exotic plants take spread quickly and displaced native species.

Elk herds flourished in the years after the eruption considering highly nutritious leafy plants became increasingly abundant, the area was closed to hunting, and a string of mild winters favored high survival and practiced calving success. Elk populations reached several hundred animals within 5 years of the 1980 eruption and continued to increase until heavy snows in 1999 caused a substantial winter die-off. Since 1999, the number of elk has increased. Much of the expanse immediately north and west of the volcano remained closed to hunting through 2005.
Outside Mount St. Helens National Volcanic Monument, next lands were salvage logged and planted with conifer seedlings after the 1980 eruption. As these conifers grow into young forests, shading out the forage that elk and deer prefer, these animals are likely to spend more time grazing in the monument, which still has many open areas because no copse were planted and natural succession is immune to take place.

Eruption's effect on mountain goats

In 1980, mount goats may take survived on the s side of the volcano where the eruption had a minimal impact. The first reliable sighting of mount goats on Mount St. Helens, however, occurred vii years after the eruption. Since 1987, scientists have seen mountain goats on the volcanic cone. In 2000, scientists observed mountain caprine animal tracks and fur in the volcano'southward crater and, during summer 2003, scientists routinely saw a mountain goat at the base of operations of Forsyth Glacier on the volcano's due north side.

Eruption'south effect on blackness bears

Black bears had footling reason to venture into the blast area for several years later the eruption as little food was available for them. All the same, every bit young conifers grew and drupe-producing plants became more arable, blackness bears were routinely observed in the blowdown zone foraging on conifer bark and berries.

Eruption's effect on cougars

Cougars, likewise known as mountain lions, are elusive animals that are highly secretive and difficult to detect. Scientists have spotted the remains of cougar kills and have seen cougar tracks in mud forth lakes and streams in the blast area, leaving little uncertainty that these large cats are hunting deer, elk, and other animals in the blast area.

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