Tuesday, April 30, 2013

Coon Hound Mummified in tree

I ran across this a while back, very sad but also so interesting. Here's the gist. Coon Hound runs inside a standing hollow tree where he or she gets stuck and dies there. Timber cutters discovered the dog and donated it to a museum still inside the tree. They estimate the event took place sometime during the 60s. I imagine the hunter couldn't hear the hound from inside the tree from very far and I don't know but I don't think tracking collars, (GPS) were around then, maybe telemetry but signal probably wouldn't get out if it it was.


Rather than decaying, the dog became a natural mummy due to the conditions of its "coffin." First, all scent of the dead dog went up the inside of the tree like a chimney. Predators and insects never got wind of the hound dog. Second, the dog's body was well protected (and well-ventilated) in the hollow trunk. Finally, resins from the core of the tree may have helped in the dog's preservation. 

Sometime in the 1980s, loggers were cutting trees in the forest. Without knowing it, they cut down the dog's tree and placed it on a logging truck. Then they looked inside and saw the mummified dog. Rather than send him to the sawmill, the loggers donated the dog and its tree coffin to the Southern Forest World Museum in Waycross.

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