salt lick

A mineral lick (also known as a salt lick) is a place where animals can go to lick essential mineral nutrients from a deposit of salts and other minerals. Mineral licks can be naturally occurring or artificial (such as blocks of salt that farmers place in pastures for livestock to lick). Natural licks are common, and they provide essential elements such as phosphorus and the biometals (sodium, calcium, iron, zinc, and trace elements) required in the springtime for bone, muscle and other growth in deer and other wildlife, such as moose, elephants, tapirs, cattle, woodchucks, domestic sheep, fox squirrels, mountain goats and porcupines. Such licks are especially important in ecosystems with poor general availability of nutrients. Harsh weather exposes salty mineral deposits that draw animals from miles away for a taste of needed nutrients. It is thought that certain fauna can detect calcium in salt licks.

Overview

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 effects of secondary compounds that are included in the arsenal of plant defences against herbivory. The minerals of these sites usually contain calcium, magnesium, sulfur, phosphorus, potassium, and sodium. Mineral lick sites play a critical role in the ecology and diversity of organisms that visit these sites, but little is still understood about 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 salt and water paths became trails and later roads for early humans.

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

Artificial salt licks

Artificial salt licks are used in the husbandry of livestock and to attract or maintain wildlife, whether it be for viewing, photography, farming, or hunting purposes. Maintaining artificial salt licks as a form of baiting is illegal in some states in the United States, but legal in others. Inadvertent salt licks may lead to unintended wildlife–human interactions.

Svärdsjö sheep licking salt in Dikarbacken in Falun Sweden.jpg, Svärdsjö sheep, an endangered Swedish local breed, licking salt
Image:salt lick 01.jpg, Block of salt mounted on a post in Sopot, Poland
File:Pilanesberg-Salt lick-001.jpg, Giraffe and wildebeest at an artificial salt lick in the Pilanesberg Game Reserve, South Africa

History

In the Americas

The indigenous peoples of the Americas and the longhunters watched salt licks to hunt game. Many became well-known, including Bledsoe Lick in Sumner County, Tennessee; the Blue Lick in central Kentucky; 'Great Buffalo Lick' in Kanawha Salines, now present-day Malden, West Virginia; the French Lick in southern Indiana; and the Blackwater Lick in Blackwater, Lee County, Virginia.

Mythology

In Norse mythology, before the creation of the world, it was the divine cow Auðumbla, who – through her licking of the cosmic salt ice – gave form to Búri, ancestor of the gods and grandfather of Odin. On the first day as Auðumbla licked, Buri's hair appeared from the ice, on the second day his head, and on the third his body.Prose Edda by Snorri Sturluson

See also

*Saltern
*Zoopharmacognosy

References

Further reading

* Kurlansky, Mark (2002). ''Salt: A World History''.Walker and Co. .

External links

*

{{portal bar, Food

Animal husbandry
Edible salt
Minerals