Alien Moose on Patrol

[karlsie]

I was just chatting with Mitch the other day about our fish and game management and how diligently they tried to keep people from domesticating the wildlife. In general, i believe this is a pretty good way to view our wildlife; they are wild creatures. Their learned behavior is not as strong as their wild instincts, no matter how young you take them or how much you nurture them. However, when you live in the middle of the wilderness, it isn't always easy to ignore neighbors who come to visit. It's even more difficult to ignore them when they decide to stick around for awhile.

Invasive neighbors are a common assault on rural Alaskans. We have squirrels that boldly steal from the bird feeder and run along the window sill to scold you if you tardy, which i suppose is a common phenomena anywhere, but we also have ermine, the bold little rascals, that stand up on their hind legs sniffing for not only the delicacies of the feeder, but the possibilities of a few chickens, and even the rabbits.

Then, of course, there are the orphaned bear cubs who look so appealing when they are young, can find a 1001 ways to entertain you, but when they are around four or five years old, decide it's time to challenge the two legged bears for territory. Actually, the female bears usually just wander off once they get their hankerings, but the males; well, they can be a problem. A married couple i know well, once spent a few years in a cabin north of Nelchina; and when you're talking Nelchina, you're talking north. They adopted a young orphaned male, who was like a big dog throughout the first three years of his life. As he gained maturity however, he developed a distinct fondness for the wife and decided to argue with the husband over her. For the sake of the bear lovers, i won't fill in the details of the confrontation, but it was a man or bear situation, so you can't really blame the family for their bearskin rug.

Another visitor to the rural community is the wolf. Contrary to popular belief, wolves have very little interest in showing up in packs to devour people. Wolves are well organized. They have scouts that look for possible prey, but their favorite big game meal is caribou. Most of the time, they're out their knocking off rabbits, mice, shrews, an occasional water fowl, and a few stray dogs. When a approaches a human habitat, it's mainly out of curiosity, and any aggressive move will send him off into the wilderness.

Truthfully, the only people around here who have a major problem with wolves, other than a few trail blazers who don't know how to keep their dogs close by, are the farmers. Wolves find the fenced in livestock rather convenient, but then, so do foxes, owls, bears and ermine.

Those who live in areas remote enough that fish and game aren't going to come knocking, and own a few sled dogs, or even a handsome female German Shepard, only hope the stray wolf that came sniffing around the cabin, will not only stick around and get to know the family, but will consider a marriage to the four legged member.

You shouldn't domesticate them, even when they're so cute, they're rolling a ball around in the yard, but what do you do about the ones that volunteer? There is absolutely no way of getting around the domestic moose. We have lived alongside the moose for so long, they ramble as freely through the streets of Anchorage as the cows do in India. We've had moose waltz into the Senior Citizens' Centers, moose that invade the emergency ward of Providence Hospital, moose that took baths in children's swimming pools, moose with Christmas decorations in their antlers, and moose that have reeled drunkenly from neighborhood to neighborhood after eating fermented crab apples. Tonight an alien moose came to visit me.



Now, this fellow appeared around ten in the evening, so the lighting was dreadfully poor, but i thought i'd try a few shots anyway. The moose became very interested in that flashing camera, so i took a few steps away from it. He followed. I backed up a few steps more, and he continued, his eyes absolutely glued to the camera. I decided it was better to come inside. The moose followed me onto the porch, seemed rather surprised i had closed the door, then decided maybe the camera wasn't so interesting after all. He wandered on up the hillside and disappeared. He might be back tomorrow, depending on whether or not he liked the territory.

As he stepped out of the bushes, i could see the moose had been wounded earlier in the year. The scar was still there, but covered with a short, even coat of new hair.



The size of the scarring would leave me to guess it could have been by a bear or a wolf, although i'm not sure how such a young animal survived. The moose couldn't be more than three years old. The antlers are little more than buds. The head is still a little short and pudgy around the eyebrows. He's unusually dark. It's unusual to find a moose with that much dark coloring. I'm not going to domesticate him if he returns; honest! But i do have a few old fruits and vegetables in my refrigerator that need tossing out. If my neighbor would like them; well, i hate to see anything go to waste.

[grainnerhuad]

Good pictures. He looks menacing with all that black. So, how does one run off a moose that has decided to curl up by the porch like a hound dog?

[karlsie]

That is a question a lot of people ask. It's not all that easy to discourage a moose that has decided your yard contains a yummy smorgasbord. When i was a child, a moose actually came into our house. I'm sure she (it was a female) felt she had been invited. When my mother answered what she had thought was a knock at the door, the moose walked in. The family dog, a curly haired spaniel, went frantic, but one nudge with her giant head, and the dog rolled across the floor and under the couch where he spent the rest of the visit whimpering. My mother finally managed to shoo the moose out the door with a broom, then enticed it into the yard by throwing pork chop bones at it. Moose don't eat pork chop bones, but just like the moose that was curious about my camera, this one wanted to know what was flying through the air.

Although she destroyed the newly planted crab apple bush, and pruned down the rose bush without permission, my mother finally made peace with the moose, especially since she returned year after year with her calves, and never attempted to enter the house again. Our policy is generally to allow the moose to do as they please as long as they didn't come inside and ask for tea; or pork chop bones.