Home Forums Hunting & Shooting General Big Game When tornadoes come

I don't live in tornado country but I see the destruction on the news. I was wondering what happens to all of the different forms of wildlife when one of these passes through, do they somehow through natural instinct escape the destruction or is the ground littered with deer, squirrel, hogs and hundreds of species of game birds and wildlife in general? Are any local species or herds ever wiped out for any period of time? I'm not putting wildlife above human life but we are usually informed about human loss and never hear about the loss to wildlife, thanks

When I lived in Nebraska I was close to two of them. One of them was TOO close.

Just in walking aroung one farmstead that was destroyed, and walking the fields looking for their personal belongings, I can say that I saw dead pheasants, deer and coyotes.
Plenty of dead songbirds too. If a place take a direct hit, there isn't much that survives. It's a wierd sight to see a chicken coop and a cow hanging in trees.

This most recent one in Utica Illinois is about an hour drive from where I live. We didn't get much, just a whole bunch of rain and hail......Thankfully.

Tornados scare the hell out of me....

Bill

Yeah, tornados can be just as rough on wildlife as anything else. Especially since most of them don't know how to get out of the way. Cows, being super stupid, are really bad for this. On the other hand, I've seen pigs head for the creek and hunker down at the approach of a tornado. I didn't stick around to see if they stayed the whole time, but they were all accounted for after it was over.

They are certainly devastating, both to humans, wildlife, and structures, but as far as wildlife is concerned, their "footprint" is so small as to have little real impact on populations.

We're in tornado alley here. A small one just missed us about a mile south a couple of weeks back. First time I ever got the kids together in what I hope is the safest spot in the house and hunkered them down. A few years ago, I was driving from St. Louis to Memphis, when the rain and winds got so bad that I pulled my truck under an overpass to give it time to improve. I almost never pull over. Sound increased, rain increased, wind blew the rain in circles and horizontal, this is rain that is coming down at maybe a 10 inches an hour rate. I was debating bailing out of the truck and huggy-bearing a column but decided that if I was going to go, I'd at least be dry. Passed by in a couple of minutes and there was a distinct trail across the cotton fields a hundred yards or so away, but there really wasn't anything to be damaged besides some cotton plants.

Anyone who claims that they are not afraid of tornadoes is an idiot or a liar or both.

Both

Short term: absolute devastation.
Long term: terrific benefit.

I've had several experiences with land that was well known to me being hit by a tornado. In every case the immediate effect was catastrophic. The bigger the trees, the bigger the splinters. I've been through 80 yr old hemlock after a twister and a bulldozer could not have done better-- 1/4 mile swath that was maybe 5 miles long.

On the other hand, nature bounces back fast. In 5 years, you have to know what you are looking at to recognize that you are in the path of a twister. All the saplings that survived have zoomed up, and there is lots of fresh undergrowth. The deer and turkey come back with a vengance, since the forage is tremendous.

The biggest problem for humans after a twister is that all the trees have fallen and they are an absolute bear to climb over and around. As a result, hikers and most hunters stay out for years.

A weather event that has even more widespread effects of a similar nature is ice. The same areas I've seen hit with tornados have also been hit with ice storms of the 100 yr variety. In those cases the big trees stay up, but everything in the 5-8 inch diameter range comes down. This can happen over 1000 square miles. Zowie!

The one other effect of a tornado or ice is that you have all this biomass laying about, and if it has a chance to dry out, you have a high risk of forest fires for years to come. One of my favorite haunts is the Big South Fork region of Southern KY. It got hit with a tornado, an ice storm, and a record snowfall all in the space of a year. On top of that there's a blight on the White Pine that's been killing off whole mountains. 5 years after the twister, the place burned. We had smoke clear up in Cincinnati for weeks-- 250 miles away.

. . . of course, with all those nutrients released back into the soil, the place greened up right away, and overall it's been a huge improvement.