It's the lichen.

Xanthoparmelia chlorochroa, I believe.

Three captive elk at our research facility were fed the lichens we collected from Monday through Friday, each receiving roughly 1 percent of their body weight in lichens added to their regular feed per day.

The lethal dose reported for cattle and sheep in the "ancient" (1950s) agricultural literature.

When I called the vet yesterday to discuss the living but afflicted elk I found out on the winter range, he mentioned the experimental elk's urine was turning pink.

The coyote hunters who first told me about finding elk down were sure those elk had been shot, since they found huge "blood" marks in the snow. But we soon confirmed those sherbert-orange spots in the snow were elk urine, not blood.

A not uncommon sight, although I had never seen it so plentiful before. But a sign of moderately severe dehydration. Once we mentioned it, almost everybody who has horses around here knew exactly what we were talking about. Guess they see it often with their horses, and it means it's time for some open water in the corral, not just snow.

Pink/orange/red/brown urine is also a symptom of a lot of other things, particularly those that involve damage to muscle tissue. Like we were seeing in the elk. Basically, you're peeing out your dead muscle cells. The darker the urine, the more severe the damage.

So, anyway. Today, a little before noon as I was helping a fellow change his flat tire where the heeler sisters and I were entering back onto the interstate to go home, the boss calls on the cell phone.

One of the lichen-fed elk went down with paralysis today, around 10 o'clock. A second was wobbly. Heck, by now, they may all be down, since I haven't heard.

According to the boss, one of the vets summed it up this way:

"It's the lichen."

End of mystery.

(But don't tell anybody, yet. They want this to come out through "official channels". But I'm betting it's already out on the AP wire.)

Anybody want the seven ticks I still have in our refrigerator from yesterday's elk?