[Luc]

More specifically, my buddy and I spent the weekend farting around a certain wilderness and found some cool skulls, elk I think. We seemed to disagree on how long they had been there. One of us suggested a range of 6mo-2y, and the other 4y-10y Which of us would win on the price is right? Pic: https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B1AHEXWFF6BcbkdZSlJvRGEyOVlUZ21VeUw0WTB1dVpDTXNF/view?usp=sharing

[Ski]

I'm not a forensic pathologist, but I do have a skull collection. Sometimes they'll last quite a while. Those three in your photo don't really appear to be that old - maybe a year or two - maybe three or four. There is a point at which rodents will start chewing on them, which is a determining factor in establishing date of death in forensics. Prior to the squirrels chewing them into nothingness, they'll start to get a little pitted and begin to deteriorate out in the weather, but that usually takes several years - longer than any of those have been out there.

[JVesquire]

I think weather, aridity, etc all play a role. We found some skulls in the Idaho desert that were very dessicated and weathered and impossible to judge the time they'd been sitting there. Cool collection.

[RodF]

I'm glad you found them somewheres around not within any certain designated Wilderness. Absurd though it may seem , it's technically a misdemeanor to possess or take shed antlers or bones from NPS Wilderness per 36 CFR 2.1(a)(1)(i), except for religious purposes. So pray over them to the elk spirit and you're good! If, and I say if, purely hypothetically, my wife picked up an eagle feather in our backyard, could she keep it? Look up the law on that one (both state & Fed)! 1 yr & $5000. She'd have to hand it over to her yoga instructor (who's a tribal member) who could let her hold it but not keep it! Hypothetically, mind you! Crazy laws!

[fairweather friend]

Really depends on the particular micro-climate. I'm thinking these were more than a few years old...

[Ski]

re: Rod's note just above: ^ True. So if you're looking for elk skulls, just prowl around a bit south of Randle in a couple months and you should be able to find plenty of them. Last one I picked up down there was just up the hill from the Iron Creek campground. Speaking of bald eagles.... I found an intact bald eagle - very dead but still in good condition - laying out on a gravel bar one afternoon just upstream from my favorite swimming hole. Took a couple photos and left it there. Too bad about the laws concerning bald eagle parts... I could have made one hell of a war bonnet!

[Randito]

Very much depends on the site and weather conditions. A carcass left in say one of Antarctica's dry valleys would last centuries if not millennia, but might last only a few months in the Amazon. I'd say both of your guesses are equally wrong and you should both buy each other a beer (or whatever the wager)

[sooperfly]

[RodF]

Ski & sooperfly, driving up Hwy 101 near Queets, saw a fledgling juvenile barred (?) owl lying on the highway, stunned but very much alert. Rather than leave it to become roadkill, I stopped, put on leather gloves, and gently carried it off the road into the woods. How many laws did I break?! Hypothetically, of course!

[Malachai Constant]

When we were in Ottawa, Ontario a deer was struck down killed on a nearby road and deposited near a running trail. Every week Lynda ran by several times a week. The removal by scavengers was quite rapid. We have coyote, wolf, skunk, martins, fisher, weasels, crows, ravens, turkey vulture, owls, and numerous insects. By one year nothing was left but the teeth. Your results may vary.

[sooperfly]

[Ski]

[Mike Collins]

[Luc]

Thanks for the input! I had thought they would take longer to be completely eaten or decayed. Hard to imagine a large carcass becoming a barren skeleton within a few seasons, but that's why I asked! BTW - on closer look, it wasn't a wilderness area but a state wildlife area.

[Navy salad]

I once attended a lecture by a WSU prof on the possible existence of Bigfoot! Asked why no Bigfoot bones had ever been found, he speculated that animals in the wild like to gnaw on bones just like dogs do, and that bones typically don't last very long for that reason. Sounded plausible, although it didn't make me a believer in Bigfoot (Bigfeet?). Counter evidence: I was once on a sea kayaking trip in the vicinity of Nootka island (off Vancouver island), where one of the paddlers knew of a native American burial cave. So he guided us to it. We didn't enter the cave (out of respect -- and in addition, it was a little creepy), but we did look in from outside the entrance and there were quite a few bones scattered about, bones that would have been very accessible to the local animal population. The fact that there were still presumably very old bones in there suggests the animals aren't as into gnawing on them as the prof said. Or perhaps after the bones are old enough, they lose their appeal to the animals. I dunno.