How To Find Natural Salt Licks

Place where animals can lick essential mineral nutrients

Gaur at a natural salt lick

A mineral lick (likewise known as a table salt lick) is a identify where animals can go to lick essential mineral nutrients from a eolith of salts and other minerals. Mineral licks can be naturally occurring or bogus (such as blocks of common salt that farmers place in pastures for livestock to lick). Natural licks are common, and they provide essential elements such every bit phosphorus and the biometals (sodium, calcium, fe, zinc, and trace elements) required in the springtime for bone, muscle and other growth in deer and other wildlife, such equally moose, elephants, tapirs, cattle, woodchucks, domestic sheep, play tricks squirrels, mount goats and porcupines. Such licks are particularly important in ecosystems with poor full general availability of nutrients. Harsh weather exposes salty mineral deposits that describe animals from miles away for a gustation of needed nutrients. Information technology is thought that certain animate being can discover calcium in table salt licks.^[1]

Overview [edit]

Many animals regularly visit mineral licks to consume clay, supplementing their diet with nutrients and minerals. Some animals require the minerals at these sites not for nutrition, but to ward off the furnishings of secondary compounds that are included in the arsenal of plant defences against herbivory.^[two] The minerals of these sites unremarkably contain calcium, magnesium, sulfur, phosphorus, potassium, and sodium.^[3] ^[iv] ^[v] ^[half-dozen] Mineral lick sites play a critical role in the environmental and diversity of organisms that visit these sites, merely little is nevertheless understood nigh the dietary benefits.

The paths animals made to natural mineral licks and watering holes became the hunting paths predators and early humans used for hunting. It is hypothesized that these table salt and water paths became trails and later roads for early humans.^[7]

Nonetheless, many studies have identified other uses and nutritional benefits from other micronutrients that exist at these sites, including selenium, cobalt and/or molybdenum.^[8] ^[9] In addition to the utilization of mineral licks, many animals endure from traffic collisions as they gather to lick salts accumulated on route surfaces. Animals also swallow soil (geophagy) to obtain minerals, such as moose from Canada mining for minerals from the root wads of fallen trees.^[10] ^[eleven]

Artificial salt licks [edit]

Artificial salt licks are used in the husbandry of livestock and to attract or maintain wildlife, whether it exist for viewing, photography, farming, or hunting purposes.^[12] Maintaining artificial common salt licks as a form of baiting is illegal in some states in the United States, but legal in others.^[six] ^: 413 Inadvertent salt licks may pb to unintended wildlife–human interactions.^[xiii]

History [edit]

In the Americas [edit]

The indigenous peoples of the Americas and the longhunters watched common salt licks to chase game. Many became well-known, including Bledsoe Lick in Sumner County, Tennessee; the Blue Lick in central Kentucky; 'Slap-up Buffalo Lick' in Kanawha Salines, now present-day Malden, W Virginia; the French Lick in southern Indiana; and the Blackwater Lick in Blackwater, Lee County, Virginia.^[14] ^{[ unreliable source? ]}

Mythology [edit]

In Norse mythology, before the cosmos of the earth, it was the divine cow Auðumbla, who – through her licking of the cosmic salt water ice – gave class to Búri, ancestor of the gods and gramps of Odin. On the first twenty-four hour period as Auðumbla licked, Buri'southward pilus appeared from the ice, on the second day his caput, and on the 3rd his trunk.^[fifteen]

References [edit]

^ C. Michael Hogan. 2022. Calcium. eds. A.Jorgensen, C.Cleveland. Encyclopedia of Earth. National Council for Scientific discipline and the Environs.
^ Voigt, C. C.; Capps, K. A.; Dechmann, D. K. N.; Michner, R. H.; Kunz, T. H. (2008). "Nutrition or detoxification: Why bats visit mineral licks of the Amazonian rainforest". PLOS ONE. 3 (4): e2011. Bibcode:2008PLoSO...three.2011V. doi:ten.1371/journal.pone.0002011. PMC2292638. PMID 18431492.
^ Emmons, L. H.; Stark, North. Thousand. (1979). "Elemental limerick of a natural mineral lick in Amazonia". Biotropica. 11 (4): 311–313. doi:ten.2307/2387925. JSTOR 2387925.
^ Black, J. G.; Mosquera, D.; Guerra, J.; Loiselle, B. A.; Romo, D.; Swing, K. (2011). "Mineral licks equally diverseness hotspots in lowland forest of eastern Ecuador". Diversity. 3 (2): 217–234. doi:ten.3390/d3020217.
^ Ayotte, J. B.; Parker, K. Fifty.; Gillingham, M. P. (2008). "Use of natural licks past four species of ungulates in northern British Columbia". Periodical of Mammalogy. 89 (iv): 1041–1050. doi:10.1644/07-MAMM-A-345.1.
^ ^a ^b Atwood, T. C.; Weeks, H. P. (2003). "Sex-specific patterns of mineral lick preference in white-tailed deer". Northeastern Naturalist. ten (iv): 409–414. doi:10.2307/3858657. JSTOR 3858657.
^ "A Brief History of Common salt". Fourth dimension. 1982-03-xv. ISSN 0040-781X. Retrieved 2018-04-16 .
^ Mills, A.; Milewski, A. (2007). "Geophagy and nutrient supplementation in the Ngorongoro Conservation Area, Tanzania, with particular reference to selenium, cobalt and molybdenum". Journal of Zoology. 271 (ane): 110–118. doi:x.1111/j.1469-7998.2006.00241.x.
^ Ayotte, J. B.; Parker, K. Fifty.; Arocena, J. M.; Gillingham, Grand. P. (2006). "Chemical composition of lick soils: Functions of soil ingestion past four ungulate species". Journal of Mammalogy. 87 (v): 878–888. doi:10.1644/06-MAMM-A-055R1.1.
^ Rea, R. "Mining and geophagy of root wad soils by moose in winter" (PDF). Wild animals Afield. 4 (ane): 86–87. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2022-03-25.
^ Klassen, Due north. A.; Rea, R. V. (2008). "What do nosotros know about nocturnal activeness of moose?". Alces. 44: 101–109.
^ "Managing the Deer Herd on Your Ranch | Hortenstine Ranch Company". Hortenstine Ranch Visitor. 2022-10-03. Retrieved 2018-ten-03 .
^ Elassar, Alaa (22 Nov 2022). "Canadian officials warn drivers not to let moose lick their cars". CNN . Retrieved iii December 2022.
^ "My Long Hunters - Blackwater, VirginiaBlackwater, Virginia - My Long Hunters". mylonghunters.info.
^ Prose Edda by Snorri Sturluson